The grant is part of a larger consortium titled Transcend, which brings together partners from across Europe to improve the translation of basic research findings into clinical applications. This project takes a novel approach: not only focusing on scientific improvements, but also involving experts in philosophy, history of medicine to completely transform how we define translation.
“Our goal is to fundamentally rethink how we define and study translation from bench to bedside,” says Genzel. “That means questioning not just what we test, but how we test it as well. We will study ways to test more naturalistic, more reliable and more translatable as well.”
Improving animal welfare and reliability of results
Genzel’s team will develop and test more naturalistic and enriched housing environments for rodents, aiming to improve both animal welfare and the reliability of experimental results. The research builds on previous work with large, enriched rodent habitats that offer more social and cognitive stimulation than traditional habitats. By enabling more natural behaviours, such environments may produce more relevant and consistent data.
“One of our projects will focus on 24/7 behavioural phenotyping,” Genzel explains. “We’ll develop a four-week testing protocol where the animals never leave their enriched environment. Instead, we observe them continuously which results in more data, with less stress for the animal.”
Interdisciplinary collaboration
The second PhD project will investigate the feasibility of implementing such improvements in industrial settings. A pharmaceutical company involved in the consortium will host one of the PhD students for a secondment, providing insight into how scalable and practical these innovations are in real-world drug development.
The grant also encourages interdisciplinary collaboration. One of the PhD students will spend six months working with a philosopher to develop educational materials on the ethics of animal research, contributing to public outreach and informed debate. Other partners in the network include the European Association for Animal Research and various communication and ethics organisations.
According to Genzel, there’s a broader message too. “Much of the public and political discussion about animal research focuses on replacement. But for many complex brain disorders, we still need animal models. That is why it is essential to invest in refinement—making research more ethical, more effective, and more translatable to the clinic.”