EARA Newsletter

August 18th 2025

EARA News Digest 2025 - Week 34

Welcome to your Monday morning update, from EARA, on the latest news in biomedical science, policy and openness on animal research.

This week: Lithium could reverse Alzheimer's symptoms – study in mice and humans; Position paper on importance of primates in Parkinson’s research; From mice and monkeys to first-in-human: new cell therapy for diabetes type 1; Bacterial duo eliminates tumours in mice without help of the immune system.

Lithium could reverse Alzheimer's symptoms – study in mice and humans

Researchers in the US found that lithium, a metal naturally present in the brain, could protect and reverse symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, in a study using human samples and mice.

Scientists at Harvard Medical School, MA, found that brains from people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease had lower levels of available lithium compared with brains from people with no cognitive impairment - lithium is sequestered in amyloid plaques, which are detrimental accumulations of proteins that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

In ageing mice and in mice that develop Alzheimer’s symptoms, the researchers found that low levels of lithium in their diet led to cognitive impairment, inflammation and loss of connection between neurons in the brain. They found that administering a lithium supplement protected the animals against several Alzheimer’s symptoms, such as amyloid plaque accumulation, brain inflammation and loss of brain cells components, restoring the brain to a healthier state.

Current Alzheimer’s disease therapies focus on clearing amyloid plaques from the brain, but these treatments have mild benefits and can have negative effects. If replicated in further studies and clinical trials, this study points to lithium as a potential treatment that could improve all major pathologies associated with the disease.

“My hope is that lithium will do something more fundamental than anti-amyloid or anti-tau therapies, not just lessening but reversing cognitive decline and improving patients’ lives,” said Bruce Yankner, leader of the study published in Nature.

Position paper on importance of primates in Parkinson’s research

Researchers across the globe wrote a position paper regarding the critical role of non-human primates (NHP) in advancing Parkinson’s disease and research on ageing.

The position paper, published in NPJ Parkinson’s Disease, is authored by Erwan Bézard and Benjamin Dehay from the University of Bordeaux and other researchers from the PDAGE international task force. They span institutions like EARA member The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other institutions in Japan, France, Sweden, the USA, and China. 

The document reviews how NHPs have been essential for breakthroughs, such as mapping brain circuits, understanding how deep brain stimulation relieves Parkinson’s symptoms, and more. These NHP studies translated directly into impactful patient therapies. 

Parkinson’s disease (PD) research often relies on small animals like mice, whose biology differs significantly from ours. As NHPs share close genetic, anatomical, and behavioural traits with humans, making them currently irreplaceable in the development of new treatments and understanding ageing processes.

Learn more about why monkeys are needed in biomedical research in EARA’s feature here.

From mice and monkeys to first-in-human: new cell therapy for diabetes type 1

A man with type 1 diabetes can now produce his own insulin after receiving a transplant of genetically edited pancreatic cells. The procedure, developed in Sweden and the US, was tested for the first time in a human, following earlier tests in mice and monkeys.

In type 1 diabetes, a life-long condition, the immune system destroys a type of pancreatic cells (islets) that make insulin. While regular injections of synthetic insulin can manage the disease, long-term control remains challenging. A new approach, donor islet cell transplants, has shown promise but requires lifelong immunosuppressive drugs to prevent the immune system from attacking the “foreign” cells.

Researchers from Sana Biotechnology, an US-based company, used CRISPR technology to genetically modify the pancreatic cells, removing the proteins that trigger the immune system to recognise and attack them.

The treatment was first tested in mice and monkeys, showing long-term post-transplant cell survival and sustained insulin production. Now it has been given to a 42-year-old man with long-standing type 1 diabetes, in a first-in-human study led by EARA member Uppsala University. Four months after the procedure, the gene-edited transplanted cells were still producing insulin without provoking an immune response or significant side effects. The patient will continue to be monitored to see if the cells survive and function long-term.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, represents a step towards a potential cure for type 1 diabetes.

Bacterial duo eliminates tumours in mice without help of the immune system

Research from Japan showed that a combination of two naturally occurring bacteria eliminated tumours in mice, even without the assistance of the immune system.

Modern immunotherapy advances, such as CAR T-cells, have largely relied on activating immune responses in patients, often immunocompromised due to other treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The concept of using bacteria to treat cancer dates back to the 19th century, but new research from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) revived that hypothesis.

Scientists developed a microbial consortium named AUN, comprising two naturally occurring bacteria: Proteus mirabilis (‘A-gyo’), which resides in tumours and can damage them from within, and Rhodopseudomonas palustris (‘UN-gyo’), a photosynthetic bacterium that helps control the other bacterium’s growth and improves its ability to target tumour tissue specifically.

When injected into the bloodstream of mice, the bacteria travelled directly to tumours and multiplied. Together, they blocked the tumour’s blood supply, triggering clotting in its blood vessels and causing cancer cells to die.

This approach worked in several cancer types in mice – colorectal, ovarian and pancreatic cancers – and was even effective in mice with no functioning immune system, an important discovery for treatment of immunocompromised patients.