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Marcel Leist Receives SOT 2015 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award

By Raul Suarez posted 01-22-2015 15:32

  

v2Marcel Leist.jpgMarcel Leist is the recipient of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) 2015 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award. Dr. Leist has been involved in the improvement of animal welfare through active research and application of alternative methods to replace animal experiments for more than 25 years. During this time, Dr. Leist has contributed successfully to the establishment of multiple experimental in vitro models that provide data on toxicity of environmental chemicals and other compound classes and that allow drug efficacy testing without the use of animals.

Dr. Leist has played an important role in transatlantic efforts in the development of new animal-free testing strategies based on new methodologies and new concepts proposed by the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Toxicity Testing or the Tox21 Consortium. Dr. Leist pioneered the use of cell-based systems in combination with human histology data to validate drug targets and to drive drug discovery projects up to clinical testing.

The concept of using human cell-based disease models of neurodegenerative diseases that Dr. Leist put into place 15 years ago has only just become mainstream thought in major pharmaceutical companies. The generation of LUHMES cells, an easily accessible model for human neurons, is used widely in the field of Parkinson’s disease. He developed the neurite outgrowth assay that is among the very few assays that can detect human neurotoxicants and clearly distinguish them from unspecified cytotoxicants. This will likely become part of a battery of tests that will substitute animal-based neurotoxicity and developmental neurotoxicity testing.

Moreover, he has promoted the scientific exchange of scientists from academia, industry, and regulatory authorities on animal replacement issues. He has worked in collaboration with over 200 scientists worldwide to issue guidance to the entire field of Toxicology for the last six years. A notable example is his roadmap for the transition to animal-free toxicity testing.

Dr. Leist received his PhD in 1993 from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Currently, he serves at this university as the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for in vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine and is a Full Professor in the Department of Biology. He has been a member of SOT since 2010.

The Society is pleased to present Dr. Leist with the 2015 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award.

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