National Cancer Institute (NCI) shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Tuesdays with Tony
Here’s a question I get often from investigators: Why is NCI asking us to justify the use of animal models in grant applications?
Let me answer that as a scientist.
Animal models have been foundational to cancer research – including my own. The work that ultimately contributed to venetoclax for acute myeloid leukemia grew out of years of studying cancer cell death, and animal studies were part of that journey. I don’t take lightly what they’ve contributed.
But I’ve also spent my career developing functional approaches – taking a patient’s living tumor cells and studying them directly, instead of inferring from an animal model.
What I’ve learned is this: The closer you get to human biology, the more confidently you can find answers that actually matter for people with cancer.
We now have tools that didn’t exist a decade ago – organoids, ex-vivo systems, advanced human cell models – and we should be taking full advantage of them when we can.
So in NIH grant applications, when you’re asked to justify using animal models, think: Is this the best tool for this specific question? What will it teach us that we couldn’t learn another way?
My advice: Be explicit. Tell reviewers why an animal model is the right choice for your question and why human-based approaches can’t get you there. It is helpful to have a very brief justification even in the abstract. Additionally, I understand that while an animal model might be necessary to answer certain questions, ultimately the relevance to human disease must be established. Validation in human models is therefore very important. If validation in a human model goes beyond the scope of your grant proposal, it is nonetheless valuable to briefly describe how such validation might be performed in the future. That clarity doesn’t just strengthen your application – it strengthens the science.
At the end of the day, we all have the same goal: faster, more reliable answers for people with cancer.
Learn more about human-based models and new approach methodologies.”
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