EARA Newsletter

21 de Julho de 2025

EARA News Digest 2025 - Week 30

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

This week: Animals are indispensable for brain research – opinion article; Coronavirus infection treatment for cats gives insights on long COVID; Engineered stem cells slow ageing in monkeys; Researchers grow 400 types of cells in the lab to study brain.

Animals are indispensable for brain research – opinion article

An opinion article in the German newspaper Die Zeit by Olivia Masseck, a professor at the University of Cologne, provides an overview on why animals are needed in basic brain research and argues that a complete ban of animal use in research would risk progress in medicine.

Olivia deconstructs the argument that basic research is superfluous, due to not having an immediate application, by sharing how basic research provides an understanding of the processes behind behaviour, health and disease. Without this knowledge, therapies such as vaccines, pain or cancer medication wouldn’t be available.

Using the brain as an example, the researcher explains how the discovery of different types of cells has resulted in potential new therapies and highlights areas in which knowledge is still limited, such as consciousness or the influence of stress – areas that still require a living organism for study.

Besides hindering science and medicine, she also raises the point that a complete ban on the use of animals in research, which is tightly regulated in Europe, could simply drive studies to other countries. Ending the article, Olivia highlights the importance of dialogue and openness to engage the public and politicians in science.

Coronavirus infection treatment for cats gives insights on long COVID

US researchers have successfully treated cats with a severe coronavirus infection using a combination of stem cells and antiviral drugs, offering insights that could benefit both veterinary and human medicine.

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a fatal disease in cats caused by a coronavirus. It leads to fever, inflammation, problems in multiple organs and a decrease in immune cells. Cats that survive the infection may suffer from long-term immune system problems, including enlarged lymph nodes, a sign of inflammation. This condition is similar to the immune dysregulation seen in some people with long COVID.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, treated cats recovering from FIP with either antiviral drugs alone or a combination of antivirals and stem cells. Cats that received the combined therapy had no serious side effects and showed reduced inflammation. They had fewer overly active immune cells and more regulatory T cells, a type of immune cell that helps calm the immune system.

Because FIP shares several features with COVID-19, the study published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine may help improve treatments for coronavirus-related immune disorders in humans.

"Many pets suffer from diseases that are similar to human diseases," said Amir Kol, lead researcher at UC Davis. "Veterinary medicine is a wonderful platform to conduct translational science that helps both pets and humans."

Engineered stem cells slow ageing in monkeys

Scientists in China have slowed signs of ageing in monkeys using modified stem cells, potentially paving the way for stem cell-based treatments for age-related health conditions.

With ageing, the body loses its capacity to recover from damage and organs begin to fail, partly because stem cells become less effective at replacing old or damaged cells. However, progress in stem cell therapy for ageing has been limited, due to the risk that transplanted stem cells may grow uncontrollably and form tumours.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xuanwu Hospital Capital Medical University have genetically altered human stem cells to make them resistant to cellular ageing and prevent tumour formation.

The modified cells were injected twice a week into elderly macaques, which are comparable to humans in their 60s and 70s. After 44 weeks, the macaques had no adverse effects, including no tumours. The monkeys that received the treatment were better at solving tasks that involved memory and thinking, and more than half of the 61 tissues analysed, including brain, bones and reproductive tissues, had fewer morphological signs of ageing-related decline.

The study, published in the journal Cell, suggests stem cells could be a safe tool for further studies in clinical trials to counteract the effects of ageing across multiple organs.

Researchers grow 400 types of cells in the lab to study brain

Swiss researchers have grown more than 400 different types of human nerve cells, offering a new way to study complex brain diseases in a dish, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and depression.

The human brain is made up of thousands of nerve cell types, which have different structures, functions and locations. Until now, this complexity had not been able to be studied in a dish — researchers were able to grow just a few dozen nerve cell types.

"If we want to develop cell culture models for diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and depression, we need to take the specific type of nerve cell involved into consideration," said Barbara Treutlein, leader of the study published in Science.

To overcome this limitation, the researchers at ETH Zurich used human-induced pluripotent stem cells, undifferentiated cells obtained from the blood. They treated the cells with specific combinations of molecules called morphogens, which help determine cell identity and location in embryos during early development, guiding the cells to form the 400 types of nerve cells.

By comparing the lab-grown nerve cells with databases of human brain cells, the researchers could identify their region of origin and function—for example, they could tell whether the cells are involved in sensing pain, cold or movement — showing that the cells were very similar to the ones in human brain.