CHRIS GREEN: I think
we'll get rolling here.
Welcome to the final event of
our fifth annual Animal Law
Week.
My name is Chris Green.
I'm the executive director
of the Animal Law and Policy
Program here at
Harvard Law School.
And I'd like to first thank our
co-hosts of this event, which
is the Harvard
Animal Law Society.
We've got the two
co-presidents here
with us, Kate Barnekow
and Gabriel Wildgen.
And so for this event,
just because we're not
busy enough during this week, we
in addition to Animal Law Week,
we've decided to host a kind of
a closed door roundtable that
had several different experts
from different realms trying
to assess the
viability of setting up
a new type of organization that
would be sort of an accelerator
model to try and
accelerate, incentivize,
encourage technological advances
that provide alternatives
to animal experimentation
and research.
So we had a really great group.
It was spearheaded by
Nathan Herschler, who
is executive director of the
New England Anti Vivisection
Society.
So he's going to
be lead off talking
about sort of what
we discussed and what
the genesis of the idea was.
And we've also got
Catherine Willett,
who is the senior
director for science and--
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Regulatory affairs.
CHRIS GREEN: Regulatory
affairs at the Humane Society
of the United States.
So with that, I will
leave it to Nathan.
Thank you.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Thank you.
I'm going to stand up.
It's really nice seeing a
lot of the same faces that
have been here all week.
How many of you
guys have actually
been here at every single
one of these this week?
Is there anybody?
Yeah, nice.
That doesn't count, Kate.
And how many have been
to like three or four?
All right.
Almost everybody.
Really cool.
So, yeah.
Huge thanks to Chris for
hosting us this week as well.
Amazing to have the convening
power of Harvard Law School
to try to bring together
diverse stakeholders.
One of the challenges
that you have
when you run an animal rights
organization is sometimes it's
hard to get people
from the other side
to try to come and talk to you.
And so being able to
collaborate with such
an amazing institution
and group of people
is really a credit to
the name and the people
that you have here.
So yeah, as Chris mentioned, we
had a really, really productive
week this week.
I'm tired.
I put together this presentation
last night and this morning,
so excuse any minor spelling
or graphical errors that
are on there.
I'm actually going to start
by talking a little bit
about NEAVS, the organization
that I run, as a whole,
and then I'll move
into sort of the work
that we've done this week.
The reason I'm doing
that, is because I've
started at NEAVS about a year
and a half ago at this point,
and we've made some huge, huge
changes to the organization.
And I think what
we've done is laid out
a vision for the future that is
going to be really productive
and help us transform the way
that we work in the animal
research anti-vivisection space.
I have some nice
ex-employees here.
We've lost Elizabeth, who
was on our team to MSPCA
recently, so I may refer to
her at some point in this
for expertise that I don't have.
And thank you to Kate too, who--
I'm a lawyer by
training, so I have
none of the scientific
background on any
of this stuff, so I'm
really thankful that we
have some really good
science minds here.
If there are any questions
related to that type of stuff.
OK.
So as I mentioned, I'm
going to quickly run
through our strategic
plan and the new work
that we're doing in exposing
a lot of the animal research
that's occurring
around the country.
I'm going to talk about
our work that we're
doing that we're sort of
classifying under an opposition
to animal research.
And then, I'm going
to talk about the work
that we were doing this
week around alternatives.
And then there's
some information
about how you can reach
out to me afterwards
if you have any questions.
OK.
So when I was in third
grade, I had just
moved to the Boston
area from Chicago.
And I was with my dad at
the Franklin Park Zoo.
And it was my first trip
to Franklin Park Zoo.
And I actually haven't been
to a zoo in a long time,
but what I remember
about that zoo
is that it sort of
had big open spaces.
And I was always
a wildlife junkie.
I was the kid who would
turn on Wild America
to watch Marty Stouffer, and I
would like sort of peruse PBS
to try to find the lion
documentaries that they
were pushing on
there, so I was super
excited to get to the zoo.
And we were walking
through the zoo
and we got to the primate
house, and I was really
excited to see these animals.
It's one of the
charismatic large species
that are out there.
I'd seen lots of
things on there.
And so I walked
in and on the left
there were a couple
small monkey exhibits,
but on the other
side of the building,
there was this sort of
crowd that had gathered
around one of the windows.
And I was curious and
so I walked up there.
And I noticed the parents
sort of grabbing their kids
and quickly moving them
away from the window.
And I looked and I
saw that a gorilla was
chewing on something and sort
of taking it out of its mouth
and smearing around the window
and then sort of picking it
back up again and sort of
putting it back in its mouth
and chewing on it again.
It was only after
a minute or two
of sort of looking at
the faces of the parents
and the children who were
sort of pointing and laughing,
and then back at the gorilla
to sort of realize that what
the animal was doing was taking
its own feces and eating it,
and swiping it, and
repeatedly doing this.
It was the sort of
first time in my life
that I had realized
that the animals that
were sort of kept in these
types of circumstances
weren't quite right.
And I wasn't really
old enough to process
the sort of like
how wrong that was
and how broken the animal was
who was having to do that,
but it really started to
inform my thinking sort
of beyond just the
emotional attachment that I
was feeling to animals.
And so I had a really
ambitious grandfather,
who when I was in high
school thought that I
was sort of slacking off.
And I was, so he was right.
And so he sent me to a career
coach, and I was like 16 or 17
at the time.
I thought that was a
little ambitious of him.
And it actually ended
up being this really
meaningful and powerful
experience in my youth.
And when I was talking to the
woman who was my career coach,
she realized and recognized that
the thing that made me light up
when I was talking
about the things
that I could possibly
do in my future,
was when I was talking about
animals and the animals--
that I had been volunteering
for the local humane society
shelter and all
that kind of stuff.
And that was sort of like where
my energy and excitement was.
And I had never
really considered
that there was anything I
could do to help animals
as a career at that point.
But she actually had some
contacts at Stone Zoo
in Stoneham, just
north of the city.
And so she got me an internship
there about six months later.
I was about 18.
I had just started going-- it
was my first year of college.
And so I went up there
and I had my first working
at a zoo experience.
It was my only working
in a zoo experience.
And I quickly
realized two things.
One, is that I am not cut
out for mucking stalls.
It is not something that
I want to do with my life.
But the second
thing that I saw is
that the same type of repetitive
stereotypic behavior that I
had witnessed when I
was in like third grade
with this poor gorilla
who had clearly broken,
was repeated in just about
every single species that
was being kept at the zoo.
Some more than others,
but for example
they have these wolves
that were literally just
had worn down a path
running back and forth
across their small
enclosure over however
many years they had been there.
And so that was sort of like
my next realization point
where I started to move beyond
just this concept of just
liking animals to realizing
that there is something really
that we needed to do to try
to address animal suffering.
So anyway, I went to law school.
I did animal protection
stuff in law school.
And then, I worked for 10 years
for the International Fund
for Animal Welfare, which is
a big international animal
protection conservation
organization out of law school.
And about a year and a
half ago, I joined NEAVS.
And so NEAVS has been
around since 1895,
and that used to be
one of the big selling
points of the organization.
It's that it sort of had
this great grand history.
And I really struggle
with that, because
in my mind, one of
the things that we
have to do as an organization
is try to put ourselves out
of business.
And so when I got to
NEAVS, I was like, well,
this 120 years is great.
It means that we have a really
nice sustainable organization
from a business
model perspective,
but it means that we've also
been failing year after year
for almost 125 years.
And so we took on a really
ambitious strategic planning
process and we identified
a number of areas
where NEAVS could, and after
consulting with a lot of people
in the field, where
NEAVS can really
try to add value to the field.
And so we built a
new strategic plan
that was sort of focused
on these three key areas.
Exposure, opposing
animal research,
and then supporting the
development of alternatives.
We also continue to do some
sanctuary support work.
So the first thing that we
decided to do was exposure,
and I pushed my Board to try
to look at some of the issues
around undercover
investigation work.
But of course, there's a lot
of legal issues associated
with that.
And so we really sort
of took a step back
and realized that we could get
a lot of the same information
through the Freedom
of Information Act.
We hired a couple of
different attorneys
who are pretty well-known
in the movement for doing
transparency issues,
and at this point now,
about three months
into this big project
we've now submitted well
more than 200 FOIA requests
to NIH and USDA to
try to get information
about a couple of things.
One, whether there are any types
of violations of animal welfare
protections that are covered
under the Animal Welfare
Act and USDA.
But also, a lot of the sort of
other types of violations that
might occur in the
course of animal
care and behaviors at
universities or other research
facilities that receive NIH
or other government funding.
And we're starting to get
results back already from this.
We're also starting to get a lot
of pushback from NIH and USDA
about just the vast
number of FOIA requests
that we're submitting.
But we're working
with them right now,
and we're going to
be trying to focus
on what are called Category
D and Category E experiments.
Kate can probably speak to this
more eloquently than I can,
but the way that
I like to think of
is the Category
E experiments are
the sort of ones that are
painful experiments for animals
that are not mitigated in
any way with any sort of pain
remedies.
And so these are
the types of things
that you do for brain
trauma type of exercises
that the military will
do, or other types
of lethal experiments
that are done on animals.
And they're done on billions
of animals in the United States
every year.
Category D experiments are also
similarly invasive experiments,
but they do mitigate
some of the pain
experiences of those animals.
So we're really
focusing on those.
And we're focusing
on those from a
from the perspective of
primates, dogs, and cats,
which are the ones
that are three
of the species that are covered
under the Animal Welfare Act.
And I'm sure that
some of you guys
know that there are a number
of species that are not covered
by the Animal Welfare Act.
Mice, rats, birds, and fish.
So it's much harder to get
information about those.
And so assuming that we have
a really good opportunity
to work with NIH and USDA
to sort of collaborate
in getting a lot of
this information, which
is the obligation
of them, then we
won't have to rely too
much on litigation.
But based on the experience
of a lot of the other animal
protection groups, we
do suspect that we're
going to have a fair amount
of litigation occurring
over the course of the
next couple of years
to get all the
information that we think,
including photos and videos and
other instances of animal abuse
which are required to be
taken when USDA and APHIS find
evidence of violations of
the Animal Welfare Act.
We also revamped our
opposition strategies
and we're really
focusing on two things.
We found a big gap that a
lot of the organizations
had moved actually out of
traditional government affairs
work, and there's a
lot of policy stuff
that's happening in the field.
But there's very
few organizations
that actually have
staff that have
history working in Congress
with have congressional members.
And so we went out and
tried to purposely find
staff who both had a passion
for animal rights and animal
protection, but also had
worked with Congress people,
so they really knew the
ins and outs of things
like the appropriations
process and for any of you who
have worked on policy
issues before, it's
often not the big bills that
you hear about like the Humane
Cosmetics Act or
some of these things
where we try to ban things
that actually move forward
pretty aggressively, but you
can get some really substantial
victories by working
sort of under the scenes,
through things like the
appropriations process.
And so Mike Ryan,
who's on our team,
worked for years with
Nancy Pelosi and the DCCC
and now has and then
worked for PeTA after that.
And so now he's with us and he's
focusing on some of that work.
And then we also,
outside of PeTA
there's not a lot of
organizations that are really
focused on our issue on really
ground up grassroots organizing
types of activities.
And so we also went
out and found somebody
who has a tremendous amount
of experience doing this
and we hired recently a woman
named Amy Meyer who some of you
may have heard of.
Again, she was
the lead plaintiff
in the Utah ag-gag case.
And so she helped
overturn that law
in the last few years working
with Matthew Strugar, who
is one of our attorneys.
So she's now helping build out
our whole grassroots effort,
and we've already started a
couple of those campaigns.
And so we hope to really
expand this type of work
over the course of the
next couple of years
and try to be one of those
organizations that are actually
getting things
done on the ground.
Just a couple of
really quick examples.
This is one of the
grassroots campaigns
that we're kicking
off right now.
It's going to be at the
University of Massachusetts
in Amherst, where
there's a researcher who
has been basically making
her career out of adding
and removing estrogen and
testosterone from marmosets
and other primates.
The research that's
being done there,
as you can see, this picture
is from a similar research
paper that was published a
few years ago, in the most
recent version of this research,
they're actually removing
the ovaries of these
of some marmosets
to sort of induce
menopausal type of symptoms
so they can start to test
whether this species is
actually going to be an
accurate replica of what
we can do to test drugs
for menopause treatment.
It's not just that invasive
surgery that they undergo,
but they also install these
telemeters into their heads
and directly onto
their brains to monitor
the impact of that research
on things like body
temperature and heart rate
and all that kind of stuff.
It's sort of like
wearing my Apple watch
but into your brain.
And they've had some pretty
horrific instances of abuse
that have occurred in violations
of the Animal Welfare Act.
One of the things
that we exposed
in one of our first FOIA
requests from U Mass
was that one of the marmoset
monkeys that were subject to,
not the current
round of research
but the previous
round of research,
had gone through a
successful surgery
to remove or to change, to
do something to the animal.
So it was a marmoset again.
And in the
post-treatment thing they
put a heating blanket onto
the animal and then left.
The heating blanket
malfunctioned and the animal
was burned to
death post-surgery.
So we know that there are
these types of problems
that are occurring time
after time across all
of these research facilities.
We've really, really
focused on trying
to get a lot of
this information out
and we're going to
be trying to work now
with the student groups at some
of the universities like this.
We're working here they're
at the University of Virginia
and in Utah to try to develop
some first time grassroots
campaigns leveraging the student
body to try to get change
at the policy level
at those universities
where they're accepting research
funding for this type of work.
We also exposed a violation
of the Animal Welfare Act
that happened at Purina's
animal care center
from a couple of years ago.
And in the case
that we found, they
have a ton of animals
at these places.
Mostly dogs and
cats, and they're
doing sort of testing of new
formulations of their dog
and cat food with these animals.
For, I imagine,
toxicity testing.
But in one case from
a couple of years ago,
they keep these animals
in relatively large cages
that are on wheels,
and so the staff
that was responsible
for cleaning up
after these cages didn't
notice that there was still
one cat that was left
in one of these things.
And they brought it to one of
the commercial cleaning rooms
that they had in the
building, and as you
can see from this quote,
which is coming straight
from the Animal Welfare
Act violations report,
the cat was found deceased in
the cage after probably having
been scalded to death in
essentially a high powered
washing machine.
So we have launched
a campaign recently.
We did things like we sent
mailers out to the entire town
where the CEO of Purina lives.
We sent this mailer
specifically to try
to create some local pressure
and make the guy feel
embarrassed as a result
of the type of work
that they're doing.
And we're also doing sort
of the traditional advocacy
type of campaigns for those
types of things as well.
We also had some early
victories as I mentioned
just a few minutes ago.
We've been trying to work more
through the appropriations
process than we
have in the past.
And in the funding
bill that was just
passed at the federal
level, we were
able to get in to that
some language to end
these cruel tests that are
occurring at a USDA facility
in Maryland.
That will require the USDA,
rather than killing kittens
that are six months old
and that can be adopted out
with a very simple treatment,
antibiotic treatment
for toxoplasmosis that cost
somewhere between $60 and $80
per animal.
In the past, they've been
killing those animals
at the end of the research.
The language now is going to
be requiring the USDA facility
to try to find a way to get
those animals out and not have
terminal ends of those studies.
So we're already getting some
good victories associated
with this type of
work, and I can't
wait to see what a lot of the
other stuff is going to lead to
in the future.
OK.
So that's the background
stuff for what NEAVS doing.
And so that leads me to what
we have been doing this week.
And so the third tier
of what we're doing
is around replacing
animal experimentation.
And historically speaking,
a lot of the organizations
that have worked
on this issue have
relied on really just
making very small grants
to individual researchers.
And so there may
be somebody that's
developing a tissue on
a chip, or some sort
of like computational
model where
you're able to sort of
plug in a lot of data
that sort of spits out some
information that will tell you
whether or not
something is going
to have an adverse
effect on people or not.
And Kate is an
expert in this, so I
won't try to pretend like I
know what I'm talking about.
So that stuff is great,
right, but in the end
we've been doing this stuff
for 100-something years
and the scale that we're
able to really move
to the development of
these new technologies
has just been completely
insufficient to try
to do anything about that.
The other area where animal
protection organizations
have been relatively strong
over the past couple of decades,
is in policy and
regulatory type of work.
And groups like HSUS
and PCRM and PeTA
have all been pretty
successful actually working
with the government to try
to collaborate effectively
on a lot of the legal and
regulatory affairs type of work
around animal research
and testing and developing
alternatives for that.
So we didn't really want to get
involved in either of those two
things as NEAVS,
as we were thinking
through our new strategic
plan, but we also
had seen sort of the success
of the Good Food Institute.
Have you guys all heard of
the Good Food institute?
Yeah.
OK.
Has anybody not heard about
The Good Food Institute?
OK.
One, two, all
right, cool, three.
We'll talk.
Yeah, that's great.
And maybe a few of
you guys who didn't
want to raise your hands.
So I will talk to you guys about
that in just a couple minutes.
Actually, I'll talk
about it right now.
So The Good Food
Institute is a is
a new non-profit organization
that had come up in the food
sector and it was spun off of
an organization called Mercy
For Animals.
And Mercy For Animals
a couple of years ago
had decided in one
of their meetings
that they wanted to look at sort
of the world of farmed animal
protection to try to identify
what could be done to really
accelerate the development
of alternatives
to animal products.
And so they went through
a series of projects,
one of which was to spin
off this new organization
called The Good Food Institute.
And The Good Food Institute
has over the last three years
since it's come
into existence, been
one of the drivers of
creation of new companies
and to accelerate the
development of existing
companies like Beyond
Meats and Impossible Foods,
which are now able to be seen in
local restaurants and markets.
Carl's Junior just brought the
Beyond Burger and Impossible
is all over the place.
And Hampton Creek,
which is now JUST Foods,
and a series of other companies
that have been supportive.
So we were looking at that
model and we were like,
there is absolutely
no reason we couldn't
try to bring the
same type of approach
to the animal research world.
And there's some really
interesting statistics
that sort of support the
need for something that
is disruptive in this field.
95% of experiments that
are done on animals
that show some sort of positive
result in those animal tests,
when they move to human
clinical trials, they fail.
So there's really
not a huge benefit
of doing a lot of that work.
And at the same time,
we've been doing things
like studying things like
heart disease for decades now
and we lose somebody
in the United States
about every 52 seconds to
chronic heart disease issues.
But there are still no cures.
And that's true for
cancers, and it's
true for Alzheimer's, and
it's true for diabetes.
We've been doing
research on these things
and have been finding cures
in animals for decades
at this point, none
of which has led
to any sort of meaningful
treatment in humans.
And just one example
of that is that
in a recent paper, a couple of
years old now at this point,
out of 22 successful traumatic
brain injury research
protocols that had been
undertaken using animals--
and you can imagine
what that might
have looked like for
the poor animals where
they're inducing traumatic
brain injury on those animals--
zero of them led to any sort
of meaningful result in humans.
Just a couple of
more statistics.
The NIH funds about $12
billion of animal research
by itself every year.
That compares to
about $300 million
was our count that we did
in the last appropriations
bill for alternatives
to animal testing.
The likely total
amount of money that's
being spent on animal research
across the US government
agencies by itself is probably
north of $20 billion dollars.
So this is an industry
that is ripe for disruption
from a monetary perspective.
You can see that there's
some money around and being
provided by us, US
taxpayers, for animal
research in this way.
So that doesn't include any
of the private funding that's
being used for this work either.
We also have a best
estimate that there's
more than 100
million animals that
are being killed as a
result of animal research
and testing every
year, globally.
We also think that
that number is probably
a vast underestimate of
what the true numbers are.
And when you start to take
into account fish and insects
and other animals
that are regularly
used in animal
research, that number
is probably much, much higher.
So this past week
we hosted a workshop
that Chris had mentioned that
was originally called The Good
Science Institute, until
Bruce Friedrich who
runs The Good Food
Institute told me I'm not
allowed to do that anymore.
And so then we changed the name
to the Better Science Society
until we realized that that
comes out to the BS Society.
And so we will
focus on a new name
and so you'll see
that in just a second.
But a huge thanks to
the Quinn foundation
and to Harvard and
to Spring Point
for hosting that workshop
with us this week
and providing some
of the funding.
We were able to bring
together, as Chris mentioned,
a lot of these diverse
stakeholders to really try
to see whether there actually
is a business model here
for the nonprofit sector
501(c)(3) non-profit that can
be developed like the Good
Food Institute to both create
and accelerate the development
of new companies that can be
both profitable and help save
the world and human lives.
So the whole goal of this is
to move out of philanthropy.
We want to be able to
leverage markets that exist
and the billions of dollars that
are available for alternatives
to animal research.
To move beyond the
small scale cash
that philanthropic
donors are able to bring
to bear on this issue.
And so we're going to be doing
as a matter of first exercises,
and we'll be doing this through
NEAVS as we try to build out
the 501(c)(3), we're going to be
doing some research to identify
basically where the gaps are,
where are the white spaces
in the world that will allow
us to identify potentially
profitable companies that can
make a major change for animal
protection in this space
and also for human health
and welfare.
Our goal that we came
up with this week
is that we're going to try to
fully replace animal research
and testing within 30 years.
It's ambitious.
We've heard this week
that there are probably
some instances where
there will still
continue to need to be some
type of animal research
that they find as beneficial
to human health and welfare,
that probably
won't be able to be
replaced by new technologies
in this timeframe.
Fair enough.
But if we can really
aim for this target,
then I think that
we're going to be
able to make such a dramatic
impact on those hundreds
of millions of
animals potentially,
that we are trying to save
that we can effectively
put ourselves out of business.
How are we going to do it?
And so this is actually
basically very similar
to The Good Food
Institute structure.
We're both going to build
and accelerate companies.
We're going to be offering, like
a venture capital firm does,
the science and technology
mentorship and then also
the legal and business
mentorship that it takes
to bring nascent
technology ideas to become
profitable companies
that can then
be sold for their intellectual
property or for other reasons.
We're going to be working with
researchers and entrepreneurs
and technologists
to try to give them
the access to the technology
that already exists
in the world and a
lot of this technology
already does exist in the world
that people don't know about.
And novel ways of leveraging
some of this technology
like organs on a
chip technology that
can be moved into
this space to create
new approaches to replacing
animal research and testing.
And perhaps most importantly,
like a traditional venture
capital firm, there
is a huge opportunity
to start working with both
traditional biotech funders,
but also the larger now
animal impact investors
that are starting to
emerge out of the field
to bring new money
and existing money
to bear and try to start
to replace that NIH
contribution of $12 billion.
And hopefully flip it,
so we get to a point
where the research that's
happening is $12 billion
for alternatives
and $300 million
for animal research and testing.
And then, importantly,
because the older generation
of researchers are
trained in animal methods,
one of the things that we
would love to be able to do
is develop curricula that do
not require the use of animal
research and testing
for advancement into PhD
programs and medical programs.
And hopefully, we can
start to train folks
that there are these
alternative approaches that
can be both profitable
and impactful for animal
and human health.
So basically what
we're planning to do
is to leverage investments
to save animals and humans.
And that's a really high
level of what we did this week
and I'm happy to talk with
Chris who is also participating
in this and in some
more of the details
and what the immediate plans
are and what the needs are
and all that kind of stuff.
So hopefully, you're
as excited about that
as I am about the potential
to completely eliminate
a field of animal
cruelty that will end up
saving hundreds of
millions of animals.
You can contact NEAVS here.
And I can give
you, anybody who's
interested in this issue I'm
happy to talk to more about.
We have this really
great advisory committee
that's starting to
build up and I'm
going to ask Kate
to be on it as well.
So if anybody's interested
in participating
in some of the knowledge
building around this,
we'd be certainly happy
to talk to you guys.
Thank you.
CHRIS GREEN: Great, thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
And so one of the reasons I kind
of felt this was so important,
I'm also on the side
participating in a National
Academy of Sciences
Committee currently
that is assessing whether the
Veterans Administration should
continue funding and conducting
biomedical research on dogs.
And from a movement perspective,
farmed animal issues
always got short shrift
and not much funding.
Now that sort of reversed with
the rise of Effective Altruism,
and you hear this common mantra
of how many animals [INAUDIBLE]
per dollar.
People are looking
at the aggregate,
and when you have 60
plus billion farmed land
animals worldwide being
killed each year for food,
comparatively it makes the
number of animals in research
look tiny.
So certain funders
are like, well,
why should we bother
funding something
that's involving a much
smaller number of animals?
The issue is, as you see with
this VA committee and NIH
committee a few years
back that basically
brought an end to federally
funded chimp testing,
there's a lot of--
the research community gets it.
They understand that
the tide is turning
as far as public opinion
goes and so they're
very reachable right now.
And I think there's room for
some really big breakthroughs
here.
So that's why we felt
it's really important
to be involved in this.
I just want to turn it
over to Kate and just say,
I was really shocked to
find during this past week
that there actually probably 20
plus companies that are working
on developing organ on a chip.
I think you saw a photo
of one a minute ago.
Here.
Can you talk a
little bit about what
some of the actual alternatives
are scientifically?
And sort of what their
viability and how they're used?
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Yeah, I'm happy to.
So I've been, just as a
slight bit of introduction--
CHRIS GREEN: Let's see.
The green light is on.
There we go.
CATHERINE WILLETT: OK, thanks.
So my history.
For somewhere between
15 and 20 years
I was a research
biologist and I did work
with animals and through some
events that happened in my life
and things that I noticed
in my own research,
I began to question if whether
there wasn't a better way
to do this.
And I came to the animal
protection community about 12,
13 years ago and started
working on the science
and policy of focusing
on alternatives,
I mean focusing on replacement.
Because we are at a
time right now where
the technology is catching
up with the aspiration,
and it's also becoming apparent
in both the medical community
and the pharmaceutical
community,
Nathan was talking
about this earlier,
that our traditional
ways of relying heavily
on animal experimentation
are falling
short in terms of
our expectations
for human health amelioration.
And there are now these
great opportunities
for these better ways.
So one of the better--
there's many different
approaches that one takes
and organs on a chip is
definitely a really interesting
technological development.
So right here in Boston
there's some leading forefront
technology happening at
the Wyss institute, which
is Harvard and MIT.
There's some stunning
biologists but engineers
and bioinformaticists that
are all working together
to create these things
that are basically
mimicking the functioning
of human organs.
They can do any species.
But human organs
miniaturized on a small thing
that's about the size
of a microscope slide.
And they have now many
different tissues.
They have the
structural functionality
and some of the actual
physical functionalities
and then the biological
functionalities
of the actual tissues.
And they're beginning to be able
to link these things together
so you can have
circuits and have sort
of a mimic of the circulation.
And that's a very, very
promising new technology.
And right here in
Boston is a good place
to start something like
this, because there
are so many people with
the expertise right here.
But there's also different
kinds of technologies.
There's other kinds
of culture systems
and there's also actually
just our better use of all
the information that we have.
I mean, we've been generating
biological information
for decades now from
all different species.
And the thing is we
don't use it very well.
Because what do we
do as scientists?
We publish it in journals.
So we publish it
in these articles
that are in PDFs that
are they're sitting
in these different places.
But what now NIH
is starting to do
and other people
are starting to do,
is try to get all that data
out of those journal articles
and siloed in reports in
government agencies and stuff
and put them together
in databases that relate
the information to each other.
So now we're sort of starting
to see a little bit what
is real systems biology.
So we've been taking biology
apart for over 100 years
and now we're at the point where
we can use computers to assist
us in putting it back together.
And in that way, you can
actually query things
in a computer in ways
that humans can't.
Because humans can
design experiments
that have one or two variables.
This is the way we think.
But biology is
really complicated.
Not only are there hundreds of
things interacting all at once,
but they're moving in time.
And so to design an experiment
that really tests something
real, a computer is very
helpful and we're getting there.
And so the combination
of these things
is bringing us now to
the point where we can
think about replacing animals.
And we have been replacing
them, but as Nathan said,
very slowly, piecemeal way, and
there's a transition happening
and it's happening in
our federal government,
in the pharmaceutical industry,
as well as, well, regulators
are a bit lagging
behind, but yeah
this is a really good time
for an incubator like this,
and there are some gaps that
really need to be filled.
So I'm very excited about
the potential for this.
CHRIS GREEN: And one
problem too with what
you said that even all
those PDFs you talk about,
those are only documenting
experiments that worked.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Right.
CHRIS GREEN: So you
can have sort of like,
my analogy is like a bridge
being out and not having signs.
We're going to conduct an
experiment that doesn't work,
but none of that those
results get published.
So all these people
after them keep
kind of driving in and
falling, driving off
the bridge, which is
a waste of their time,
it's a waste of money, it's
a waste of animal lives.
So finding some way to
sort of publish and get
some sort of clearinghouse for
that would be great as well.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Exactly.
You know that's--
NATHAN HERSCHLER: And
just to add to that
and correct me if I'm
wrong, but this is something
that they've already
done in the context
of human clinical
trials, is it not?
They essentially
require the registration
of both your methodology and
the raw data at some point.
CATHERINE WILLETT: And it has
to be publicly available, which
is not true in the
rest of research
and certainly not true in
the pharmaceutical industry.
CHRIS GREEN: And with The
Good Food Institute model,
I mean, I think when
they start in 2016 right
around the same time the first
cell-based meat company got
started, Memphis Meats.
And I think now I think
that's close to 37
just two or three years later.
Not even 2 and 1/2 years later.
And there's 37 different
cell-based meat companies
or other products working
in this other ag space.
I mean, it just really shows
you the value that The Good Food
Institute has had.
I think, in addition
to being an incubator,
I think that this organization
could, As the Good Food
Institute has, serve as sort of
a de facto industry trade group
to sort of help educate
the public about this
and help sort of interact
with some of the regulators
and other government agencies
that have a stake in this.
CATHERINE WILLETT: And there's
a slight added complexity
to this because
unlike food where
you're creating a
product, and you're
sort of mimicking the product,
this is kind of information.
And so one thing is not
going to replace an animal.
It's not going to replace the
information that you would get.
So you have to really
think about how you're
going to integrate information
from multiple different sources
and put it together
in a package.
So you have a company that
has a particular tissue type
but that's not in itself
going to replace animals.
You have to figure out how these
are all going to work together
to create the information.
And especially in a
research situation
where you're asking sort
of open-ended questions,
I mean that's a larger problem.
But even in the
regulatory space where
you have this long list of
things that you want answered,
how you answer
those questions is
going to involve the integration
of multiple different types
of information.
And something like
this could really
be helpful in trying to
figure out what that is
and how they can be packaged,
and how these companies
will have to work together,
because people will want
to order, they'll need the
products and the information
from multiple sources.
CHRIS GREEN: And
again, as Nathan
was saying with
this model, yes, it
will require a little
bit of philanthropic help
to get off the ground,
but the whole goal
is to just incentivize
actual investment.
So there's the
companies are getting it
because there's a
chance to sort of make
a return on their investment.
Well.
OK, we'll give you one
just a couple of minutes
if anyone needs to leave for
class, we'll let you leave now.
And we'll start the Q&A
in a couple of minutes.
Or get more pizza.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Some
of it's already happening.
I mean, the
pharmaceutical industry
is developing a
lot of this stuff
because they see the promise
in terms of reduced cost
to market, but also just
the overall efficiency.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: I
think that there's
going to be potential-- one of
the things we're talking about
this week is the
potential for partnership
opportunities with
pharmaceutical industry
and chemical industry in
particular as the ones
where there's the highest
potential profit margin moving
outside of the regulatory
talks where all the [INAUDIBLE]
profit margins probably
significantly larger.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Yes, that's right.
Yeah.
Except in some of the states,
I mean because safety is,
for pharma, has been a big
it's been a big problem,
but it's also been--
they're not sure how
to approach it, really.
So yeah.
I mean, it costs over
a billion dollars
to bring a drug to market.
CHRIS GREEN: All right.
So we're going to move
to the Q&A portion.
I'm going to have a microphone.
If you can please put up your
hand if you have a question
and wait till I get to you,
because we'd like that question
to be recorded as well.
OK.
Any questions?
There you go.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, so hi.
Thank you so much.
This is super exciting.
I'm wondering on the 95%
figure that you showed,
is that different from like what
you would expect background?
Like is there a statistically
significant difference
between that and
non-animal screened trials?
CATHERINE WILLETT:
So well, I'm not
exactly sure which the
number he was referring to,
but the number that I have
in my mind is more than 90,
somewhere in a 95% of drugs
fail in clinical trials.
And so that's not saying exactly
that it's all due to the animal
failure, but what
it does tell you is,
well, they fail for
a couple of reasons.
One is because of
unforeseen toxicity
that pops up in the humans.
That's rarer.
But more often what happens is
a lack of efficacy in humans.
And so what that's
saying is really
that the biology that's
represented in the animal
is different enough
from the human
that most of the time, and
this is true, most of the time
it's not the same.
And there's a couple
of things that
go into that, because biology
itself is inherently variable.
So if you go back and look
at the animal experiments
and where there
are databases where
the same chemical for
example or same drug
has been tested multiple
times in the same test,
you see wide variability.
I mean, it can be orders
of magnitude different.
And within the same species
within just repeated
experiments.
So there's that variability.
But also there's a very
significant difference
between animals.
So people say, oh, yeah.
Well, monkeys and humans
they're 98% the same.
It's that 2% difference
that really has a big impact
particularly in the
response to chemicals,
because the response to
chemicals or exogenous
things that you
run into is heavily
dependent on how your body
processes those things.
So how it's absorbed,
how it's distributed,
how it's metabolized,
and how it's excreted.
And those small
differences between species
have dramatic impacts
on those things.
So a drug can fail for
all kinds of reasons.
But all of those added
up all together results
in this 90-some odd
percent failure rate.
CHRIS GREEN: And isn't
it true that we're
something like 92% genetically
identical with bananas as well?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Well, yeah.
That's right.
There's a lot of basic
systematic biology
that happens, that
makes you alive.
SPEAKER 2: Thank you so
much for your presentation.
I also had a comment about
the failed studies statistic.
I worked for two years
in vaccine research
on human clinical trials.
And a lot of the researchers
I worked with thought
that failed studies were a
positive thing, because you
publish them and then hopefully
researchers in the future
do a comprehensive
literature review
and see this is a failed method,
I will no longer pursue this.
So I was hoping you
could comment on that.
And then also, in my
previous research,
some of the technicians would
be flown out to southern states
to do primate research.
And I was hoping
you could comment on
if these methods are banned,
how you discourage people
from going elsewhere.
CATHERINE WILLETT: That
was a great question.
Thanks.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: You want to
handle the first part of it?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Sure.
And I could also impinge on
the last part a little bit.
The first part was
about the-- oh, yeah.
So the negative.
So yes, it is one
of the places where
you would get negative
data, one of the few places.
But unfortunately,
it doesn't give you--
it doesn't always tell you why.
Sometimes it does.
But yes, it is very
important, but you
don't want to base your
whole clinical development
system on a 95% failure rate.
Yes.
And then the second part.
Yes.
Yes.
That is very important.
And one of the things that we
work on and one of the things
is the global situation.
So people will always
go where it's cheaper,
where it's less regulated,
where-- so the idea is a level
playing field across the world.
So we're starting in a place--
we have this Be
Cruelty-Free campaign.
So what we're starting in is
just leveling the playing field
across the world where you are
prohibiting sales and testing
of cosmetics on animals.
So start simple.
But you also have to work
with other countries and areas
to educate them around
animal welfare issues.
Some countries it's not
even on their radar at all.
And also the global
marketplace can
be effective in
bringing people up.
So I work a lot
in China right now
and the fact that
China wants to engage
with the international
marketplace
is having dramatic effect
on the way they do business.
On just the fact
that they're engaging
with international regulations
and international test
guidelines and
all of that stuff.
So the international marketplace
can have a big effect.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
And just to add on to that.
One of the things that we've
seen in the last few years
is that I think it is true
that there's more pressure
to publish failure data in
human clinical type of work
than there is in the
animal study world.
One of the big failures
that we have and Chris
was sort of referring to
this just a moment ago,
is that there is not
necessarily the same incentive
nor is there any sort of
requirement of a publishing
failure data for a lot of
the preclinical animal-based
studies.
And so we do think
that there's probably
a lot of replication that's
occurring with research that's
failed at least once before.
And that's just,
in my mind, that's
wastage of animal lives, of
taxpayer dollars, and more.
And on the primate
issue, I totally agree.
I think actually it's
a really big problem.
We can actually see
some examples of that.
Just to note a
couple of statistics.
At the moment we have actually
more primates in the United
States being actively
used in research
than we have at any
time in history.
The actual numbers of animals
being both used actively
in research and in sort
of breeding colonies
is not at an all-time
high but it's
about 105,000 primates
in the United States
at this point in
both of those things.
And about 70,000
of them roughly are
being actively used in animal
research at the moment.
So it's still a pretty
substantial problem.
Some of you may know
that in 2015 they
put in place a de facto ban
on the use of chimpanzees
in animal research.
Basically, NIH said that
there would no longer
be funding flowing to
research using chimpanzees
after a systematic review.
As far as I know, that hasn't
resulted in chimpanzee research
moving elsewhere in the world.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Well,
nobody in the world
allows chimpanzee research
except Gabon and the United
States.
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
Well, there you go.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
But there you go.
It's sort of a harmonized
playing field already.
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
Yeah, so that's good.
But we do see, so
for example, we
have more strict rules
in the United States
around human animal chimeras.
The sort of like
hybridized genetic mice
with human genetic material
being implanted into them,
or rats or primates.
And you'll have seen likely in
the news relatively recently,
a couple of months ago now,
some Chinese researchers
successfully cloned
genetically modified--
what were they, marmosets?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Yes.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Something.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
And they're also
using CRISPR to do everything.
So they're now making
genetically modified
every single species you can
think of, including humans.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yes.
So CRISPR technology
is basically
they're knocking out
individual gene sequences
and replacing it
with something else
to try to create
hybridized animals.
And so one of the things
that we're actually
looking at in the
United States context
is to see at what point do
you start regulating those now
human animal hybrids that are
no longer the species that they
originally were.
Additional legal
protections up to the level
of human clinical protections.
ALDF actually has a petition
for rulemaking and to somebody
about this right
now and there's been
no response so I suspect
that there will probably
be a lawsuit coming
around a failure
to move on that at some
point in the future
and when that happens we will
probably join that litigation
and push for even more stringent
standards associated with that.
CHRIS GREEN: Question here.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah.
Thank you both for your
contributions today.
And I have two
questions, actually.
One of which is very technical,
technically oriented,
and the other one of
which just has more
to do with that 30 year
replacement of animal testing.
So the first one is
just, both of you
had touched on this idea, as
well as Chris, of this idea
that the kind of true negatives
aren't out there for us
to find, so that we keep
driving off that cliff.
What about the issue
and is anyone focusing
less on the issue of false
positives and the fact
that a lot of animal testing,
particularly coming out
of drug companies, relies on
very shoddy statistical design
that is designed to move
things move drugs along
and trials along even if
they aren't effective?
And maybe though White
Coat Waste Project
is focusing on this, but it's
a very unappealing unattractive
issue to just look at
bad statistical design.
You can't really like
rally funders behind this.
But it does seem like
low-hanging fruit.
If anything, can
be done about it.
And the second one of which
is, a lot of the systems
technology that you're talking
about and the computation
reflects organs and kind of
biophysical systems in humans.
But what about cognitive
and biochemical systems
that are being used to test
like behavioral therapies
or mental drugs?
Which is, a lot
of animal testing,
is understanding how a
creature with a brain works
and when there are literally
trillions of connections,
I don't really
understand how those
can happen without an
advent in quantum computing.
So my non-technical question
isn't non-technical either.
But hopefully you can
touch on both of those.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Oh, boy.
Yeah.
Sorry, the first question was?
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
False positives.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
False positives.
So yeah, I mean,
there is actually
quite a dawning of awareness
in the scientific community
around this problem
and they're sort
of working on it themselves.
So there's a whole
huge-- there's
workshops and week-long
things about how to improve
not just statistical design
but experimental design.
Because they realize
that these are an issue.
But unfortunately, in
the pharmaceutical world
the bottom line
drives everything.
And so until it's
a monetary problem,
it's very difficult to
figure out how to solve it.
But yes, I agree
that that's an issue,
but I think it's something
that they're aware of
and they're trying to solve.
The second piece
that you mentioned
is interesting
because, and I just
want to share something
with you and that
is the National Institutes
of Mental Health
actually are realizing
that their traditional way
of thinking about
diagnosing people
isn't working, because it's not
helping in terms of figuring
out what to do with a patient.
And so especially in
the areas of autism,
because these things are
syndromes but they're
biologically based though.
I mean, there's something
biologically happening
that's resulting in affecting
behavior or affecting
the response to a situation.
And so they're starting
now this program
where they're trying
to correlate behaviors
but with the underlying
biological processes that are
happening in the individual.
So just like with cancer
stuff where they realize
that tumors are actually--
ovarian cancer is
not ovarian cancer,
it's a multitude of
different types of cancer
depending on the
genetic signature
of a particular tumor which can
vary within an individual even.
So it's the same
kind of approach.
Can they better characterize
at the molecular level, what's
happening physiologically
in the individual
and use that information
to help them understand
how to treat that person.
Yeah, because these
things are so complicated
and it is-- but how do you
use the molecular information?
How do you use your
understanding of biology
and apply that to individuals
to help figure out
what to do with that person?
NATHAN HERSCHLER: I have nothing
to add on the second piece.
[LAUGHTER]
On the first piece, just
a quick note that I do
think that there is something
that we can do around
the issue of false positives.
And I do think a
lot of it is really
related to just poor
research design,
either at a regulatory
or legislative level.
The decisions that are made
about how the funds at NIH,
for example, are allocated
to specific research
is being made by a
small group of people
who are part of that community,
and those scientific review
groups, which is
what they're called,
are groups of, I don't know,
10, 12 people basically
who have been steeped in this
world for years and years
and the criteria
by which they make
those decisions is
rather arbitrary
and allows for a
lot of flexibility.
So I have a
hypothesis and I don't
know if we could ever
do anything with this
or actually whether it would
help the number of animals,
because, I mean, the problem
with poor research design
is that the way
to make it better
is often to use more animals
from a statistical design
perspective.
But if we can look
at that and show
that it would result in a
lower number of animals,
we could either
through legislation
or regulatory reform try to
require those scientific review
groups to take into account
the risk of poor research
design in some meaningful way.
CATHERINE WILLETT: And you
can do sort of an analysis
to see the minimum
animal numbers that you
would have to have to
get a statistically
significant difference.
So I work in a place
called the OECD, which
is the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development.
They create test
guidelines for everything
that's traded in the
world, including chemicals.
And so if you affect the
test guideline design there,
you effect the test
guidelines that
are used in all 36 member
countries, which is most
of the industrialized world.
So at any rate.
So we've been going through
all of the test guidelines
at the OECD and doing
that kind of calculation
to see what the minimum numbers
would be in order for you
to get a statistically
significant amount.
And it depends on the endpoint.
It depends on what
you're measuring too.
But that's just something
that should be done always,
but rarely is, especially
in the research community.
They don't think
about it that way.
CHRIS GREEN: On the note of
affecting pharmaceuticals'
bottom line, maybe the trick
is to just find not only affect
their bottom line.
I can see that being
the case with testing
animals in a statistical
framework as well, which is you
can often just crank up the
number of animals you're using,
because there's no actual cost
of using [INAUDIBLE] animals,
whether it's an administrative
cost or a financial cost.
So in both cases,
I think, probably
have something to do with
making the cost of doing
that testing higher, either from
a purely financial perspective
or from a public
perception perspective.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yes.
And this is how the NEAVS
and this new institute
sort of work in tandem to
create an economic situation
where the balance shifts.
CHRIS GREEN: Another
question back here.
STEPHANIE HARRIS:
Kate, you mentioned
the cruelty-free
campaign for HSUS,
and I know that both HSUS
and NEAVS and MSPCA are all
supportive of two state-level
bills on animal research
issues.
So just, since we've got a
lot of Massachusetts residents
in the room, I thought
maybe you might
want to take the opportunity
to mention those briefly.
CATHERINE WILLETT: I think
you should mention them.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah, I think
you should mention them, Steph.
State director for HSUS.
STEPHANIE HARRIS:
Sure, well there's
two pieces of state
legislation that
are pending this
session that are refiled
from last session
that would protect
animals used in research.
So there is one that would
promote the use of alternatives
for animals used in
cosmetics or product testing
when there are effective
alternatives that
are available.
It would require the use
of those alternatives.
And then the other bill
would promote the adoption
of animals, dogs and
cats specifically,
at the end of their
term in research
if adoption is a
viable option for them.
And so we could use the help
of Massachusetts residents
in supporting those bills.
So if you're up for
contacting your legislators
and encouraging
them to support them
as they move through
this legislative process,
that would be really helpful.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
CATHERINE WILLETT: And there are
similar bills in other states,
if you happen to be
resident of other states.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah,
and just to add on to that.
I mean, this is a
great opportunity.
The bill as it's
currently structured
would not be the most
advanced in the country,
but we're really hopeful
that we can build off
of the success in California
that just occurred
in the last session to really
create something that's
super progressive and actually
would result in probably
the end of these
types of products
that are sold in Massachusetts
from being sold in the future.
So there's really strong
potential here for something
really good for animals.
CHRIS GREEN: It
just struck me too
that one thing this organization
can maybe do is, is to be that.
It says, if alternatives
are available,
you could be a sort of a
clearinghouse for listing
all the alternatives that
have been shown to work
that people can refer back to.
SPEAKER 4: Hi.
I really enjoyed
your discussion.
I've got a question
more about the sort
of strategy and positioning
of this new society.
So something I've been
interested in lately
is the development of
this One Health movement.
And I'm wondering if
you've thought about that.
So that's promoting the idea
that sort of animal health
and human health are related.
And it seems to me, on the
one hand that sounds great,
but on the other hand, the way
I've seen it actually deployed
in practice seems to be a
way for veterinary medical
professionals to
sort of increase
their own professional status,
and hence the use of animals
potentially and in research.
So I was sort of
interested in how
you're positioning yourself.
And this idea that
you really need
to get at students
and academics who
are seeing training
on animals as
central to the whole process.
So it seems to me there
may be both an opportunity
but also a threat
there in the sense
that there is a counter-movement
to try and argue,
well, we're doing this
research on animals,
and that's going to help the
animals as well as the humans.
So let's not get rid of it.
So I'm curious about that.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: You
want to touch one at all?
CATHERINE WILLETT: I
could say something,
but I'm sure you
have something too.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: No, go ahead.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
I was just, I've
been noticing this
sort of I consider them
quite cynical ads that
say if you love animals,
you'll love animal research.
They have these
ads around and it's
interesting to have
that perspective.
But what I devote my
life to at the moment
is trying to get people to
realize that even the animal
experimentation
that we're doing,
we do blindly, because we're
not using the information
we already have.
We don't think that much about
what we do before we do it,
because a lot of it
is just sort of rote.
And you do the same
thing that you've always
done with the same
approach you've always had.
So you're wasting
a lot, even if you
believe that animal
experimentation is
critical to what you're doing.
So what I think is that
if we use the information
that we already have and
we thought about things
a lot better, there
are technologies
that we can use to understand
animal diseases better than you
can do in an experiment,
better than you can do
in an experiment
in a living being
no matter what species
we're talking about.
One of the things that has so
much potential, this project,
is there's a limited
number of resources.
There's a limited number of
hours in a day per researcher.
There's a limited number of
dollars in the research budget
globally.
And how do we make
the shift from the way
we've been doing everything, the
way we always done everything,
to the potential
of this new future?
Because if you put
all your money here,
it takes away from what
you're devoting here.
So how do we shift some of
this to this future that
has so much
potential and doesn't
involve experimenting on living
beings, whatever species.
And I think this institute
is really positioned
to help accelerate that.
I think it's happening,
because people are already
seeing the shortcomings
of these things.
And they are shifting,
but it's very slow.
I mean, you've got
this huge ship.
You have the multi-billion
dollar animal research
industrial complex or whatever.
I mean, people-- and
they're just steeped in it
and they don't think about
it from another perspective.
So this is a perfect accelerator
for shifting this viewpoint.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Thank you.
I hope so too.
The other thing just to add
to that is the numbers that we
were quoting up
here before does not
include the research
that's being
done for veterinary medicine
and development, which
is specifically targeted
to help animals.
And sort of like
the Purina example,
like one of the things
that we're getting back
from NEAVS when we
sort of do this,
like what kind of what kind
of pet industry type of thing
are we supporting that's
actually hurting animals
in a meaningful way as part
of their process of getting
new products on the market?
The sort of irony
of that is something
that seems to resonate really
well with the general public.
I think there's a
gap actually here.
I think that it's
been thought of.
I think a lot of work is being
done by a lot of organizations
around regulatory toxicology
and pharmaceuticals
and all that kind
of stuff, but there
hasn't been a lot of focus
on veterinary medicine
development.
And I do think because it
is a multi-billion dollar
industry in its own right, that
there probably is opportunity
in the same vein to try to
adopt either this model or even
just more of a traditional
non-profit model
where we could actually start
to advocate in a meaningful way
to make better the regulations
and laws as they relate
to doing animal testing.
There's been a few things,
like pound seizure type of laws
at the state level that
prohibit these types of research
facilities from going
into local shelters
and pulling animals
out for research,
but it hasn't really been a
focus as far as I'm aware.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Not too much.
Just around the edges, as you
say, when something comes up.
I mean, there are
certain instances
where groups find
a problem like this
and then they advocate
for a different way.
I mean, if you have a
problem that somebody
is researching
somewhere and it could
be taken care of in a
clinical setting, for example.
So try to shift it
to a clinical setting
where you have an already
sick or already injured animal
and you do your kind
of training that way.
CHRIS GREEN: There has been a
big growth in volunteer trials,
where people rather
than having to induce
all of these conditions--
Americans make
200 million visits
to the veterinarian every
year with animals that
are already having problems.
So you've seen a lot of
growth in that as well.
Do we have a question back here?
SPEAKER 5: I read a lot
about tissue engineering
for human use and read
about 3D-printed kidneys
and whatnot for human use.
And I don't have a
biology background,
so I don't really
quite understand it.
But I'm wondering is that going
to be a game changer in terms
of moving away, or is it
going to be something,
just because it's
a new technology,
is it all of a sudden
going to require
a whole ton of new
research that are
going to bring in
animals in order
for it to be proven for humans?
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Another
one for you, I think.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Yeah.
Well, I mean, interestingly,
I think both of those things
are true.
So because of the way
the are preclinical stuff
is structured right now,
these new tissues and stuff
will all be tested on animals
before they go into humans.
But and these
tissues are already
proving to be game changing
in terms of our ability
to test chemicals
and do research
on tissues that very well
mimic the in vivo situations.
And the other really
interesting thing
is these 3D printers and the
different culturing techniques
you can now begin to
create in the lab.
You can create tissues
from patients themselves,
from people with
specific genetic--
and you can also make
models that are very
similar to say cystic fibrosis.
I mean, the Harvard
Wyss Institute
has cystic fibrotic
lung on a chip.
And so you can start
to really study
these diseases, complicated
diseases, in vitro.
And that's very
exciting and is already
becoming a game changer.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: And then just
my only addition to that one
is and you actually
already said this,
but I just want to reiterate it.
One of the challenges
that we do experience
here is that even
when we're developing
these new technologies, right
now the process of validating
them and sort of
testing them actually
is using animals
again to make sure
that they're as good or better
than the animal models that
already exist.
That's really messed up and I'm
hopeful that some of the data
that already exists from
these decades of, I mean,
at this point we have 100 years'
worth of animal research data
that's sort of just
sitting out there.
Hopefully some of these
computer models can validate.
CATHERINE WILLETT: And we do
have some progressive people
in the government.
There is at least a handful.
And there's the
National Institutes
of Environmental Health.
There's a group there and they
are doing some of this stuff
and it's really good
that they are doing it,
because people believe them.
So they're going back and
looking at a lot of this animal
data and looking at the
variability of the animal data
and then just debunking this
idea that these new methods
need to be held up to the same
standard as the animal data,
because the animal data
is all over the place
and it's far from being true.
And especially for
humans, it's not true.
But then you have
the question, well,
what do you hold it up to?
And that's where, again,
this understanding of biology
comes into play, because at
a certain point what you want
to do is you want your
research and your testing
to actually be
hypothesis-driven,
which we used to do with
scientists a long time ago,
but we've gotten away
from that in recent years.
So go back.
And when you're testing or
thinking about something,
you're basing it on a hypothesis
based on your understanding
of biology.
And so the new
methods, the results
you get, you feed back into what
you already know about biology
and does it make sense?
Are the results you're
getting making sense?
So instead of
comparing them to what
happens in an animal when you
empirically do the experiment,
you're basing it on the context
of what you know about biology,
and you're ground
truthing it that way.
So it's actually
quite a different way
of thinking about validation
than people are used to,
but there's a lot of people
that it's dawning on them,
and they're trying to figure
out now how we do this.
CHRIS GREEN: One last
question right here.
SPEAKER 6: A related question.
And I guess I'm thinking
about the big picture.
It's a very plausible,
very persuasive argument,
if we could find a ways of
not using other species.
This, though, is a pathway
in terms of technology
in practice and so forth
to get to that point.
Where are we at in terms of just
the technology, the techniques,
the sort of alternatives that
would be functional plausible?
What's the sort of timeline
that you can see for that?
Putting aside the cultural
change and the investment
and all that sort of stuff.
CATHERINE WILLETT: I see the
technology as quite far ahead
of--
well, obviously, it's far
ahead of the implementation.
So there are organ systems
that have been developed.
There's computer systems that
are capable of making sense out
of many bazillion
different types of data,
but our ability as humans
to interpret and implement
the results of those
things is lagging behind.
In terms of a timeline, boy.
Man, 30 years.
30 years to complete
replacement.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah, I mean--
CATHERINE WILLETT: It may
not be out of the question.
And it also depends on
the will, because if we
decided that that was the
goal as the United States,
as a culture, like
getting to the moon.
Yes, absolutely could we do it.
Absolutely.
I mean, the technology
fairly exists.
It's the implementation and
working out the rough edges.
CHRIS GREEN: That's
not unlike what
we're seeing with the
cell-based agriculture.
To go from the very first proof
of concept hamburger in 2013
to now 30 plus companies working
on it in just a few years.
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
Yeah, and the cost
reducing from somewhere,
what, like $30,000 per patty
down to a couple of
hundred at this point?
CHRIS GREEN: It was $330,000.
So price per pound was
about $1 million per pound.
Then you went from the
$330,000 hamburger,
I think you had a $50,000
meatball, to a $6,000 chicken
strip.
Which still sounds
crazy, but on a per pound
basis to go from $1
million a pound down
to around a few
thousand dollars a pound
just in a couple of years.
I mean, on a graph
that looks really good
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah, it
would look really great.
Yeah, I'll take that.
CHRIS GREEN: And this
brings up another area.
I mean, we aren't just talking
about biomedical research
and sort of testing
of pharmaceuticals.
Impossible Foods,
with their hamburger
they had a novel
ingredient, heme,
and because it was new
they felt that they
were obligated to do
some animal testing
to prove that it was safe.
So I think there was 188
rats that they had to--
or mice or rats that they had
to use and they were killed.
And it caused a lot
of consternation.
To create a plant-based product,
you had to kill animals.
So there's a lot of room
for alternatives here.
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
And policy change,
because that's ridiculous.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Yeah.
Yeah, it is ridiculous.
And the thing is good
markets like that,
big markets like that,
companies in that position
can have an effect on
the regulatory process.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Absolutely.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
[INAUDIBLE],, also.
CHRIS GREEN: Great.
Well, thank you all
for participating in
our fifth annual
Animal Law Week here.
And I'd like to thank both
the speakers, Nathan and Kate,
so please join me in
thanking them one last time.
[APPLAUSE]
