Abstract
3Ranker
The 3Ranker project is a collaboration between the Karolinska Institute, SYRCLE and TenWise, and was financed by the Swedish Fund for Research Without Animal Experiments.1 ‘3R’ represents the three ways of implementing alternatives to animal experiments by means of: — Replacement: avoiding or replacing the use of animals in areas where they otherwise would have been used; — Reduction: minimising the number of animals used consistent with scientific aims; and — Refinement: minimising the pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm that research animals might experience.
This project developed an artificial intelligence-based search algorithm (3Ranker) for Three Rs papers. 3Ranker currently works for 35 million abstracts that are indexed in MEDLINE. The portal has three main tabs: — Search: this tab enables searches across all abstracts indexed in MEDLINE from any given input term. The search results are then scored by using the 3Ranker algorithm and the 200 abstracts with the highest score are displayed in the results table for further analysis. — Curated abstracts: this tab contains a table displaying all abstracts that were rated as 3R-related by certified experts. — Reference scoring: this scoring tab is used to actively review new abstracts in term of whether they are related to the Three Rs. This is a continuous process to keep on improving the algorithm.
The 3Ranker algorithm is freely available at www.open3r.org; the future goal is to expand this framework to cover multiple research domains and to enable its broad use by researchers, policymakers, funders and ethical review boards, in order to promote the replacement of animal use in research wherever possible.2
References
1. 3Ranker project. 3R ranker, https://www.open3r.org/ (accessed 17 October 2023).
2. van Beuningen N, Alkema S, Hijlkema N, et al. The 3Ranker: An AI-based algorithm for finding non-animal alternative methods. Altern Lab Anim 2023; 51: 376–386.
Human Data for Skin Sensitisation Method Evaluation
Establishing confidence in alternatives to animal use for identifying potential skin sensitisers requires high-quality reference data for the evaluation of new approaches. As humans are the species of interest for regulatory testing, the ideal reference data will be derived from testing on humans. To support the evaluation of non-animal approaches for the assessment of skin sensitisation, the National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) collected data from 2277 human predictive patch tests (HPPTs) for skin sensitisation from 1555 publications. The data comprised human repeat insult patch tests and the human maximisation test, and they scored the tests for reliability and removed duplicates by tracing back to the original reports.
The resulting database, which is described in a paper by Strickland et al.,1 contains information for 1366 unique substances. It is publicly available as a resource for the additional evaluation of alternative methods and development of new approach methodologies for skin sensitisation assessments. The HPPT database is provided in two formats: as a Microsoft Excel™ workbook on the NICEATM website (https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/hppt) and also via NICEATM’s Integrated Chemical Environment platform (https://ice.ntp.niehs.nih.gov/).2
References
1. Strickland J, Abedini J, Allen DG, et al. A database of human predictive patch test data for skin sensitization. Arch Toxicol 2023; 97: 2825–2837.
2. NICEATM. Human data for skin sensitization method evaluation, https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/hppt (2023, accessed 31 October 2023).
Digital Atlas of Human Fetal Brain
An international team of over 200 researchers, led by the University of Oxford (UK), has published the first digital atlas of the dynamics of normal development of the fetal brain during a critical period, between 14 and 31 weeks’ gestation.1 The atlas was produced from over 2500 3-D ultrasound brain scans that were acquired during pregnancy from 2194 fetuses in the INTERGROWTH-21st Project, which is a large population-based study of healthy pregnant women living in eight diverse geographical regions of the world, whose children had satisfactory growth and neurodevelopment at 2 years of age.2 This is the first time that an international dataset of 3-D ultrasound scans, which were collected by following standardised methods and equipment, has been analysed with advanced artificial intelligence and image processing tools to construct a map showing how the fetal brain matures during pregnancy. The digital atlas is freely available at: https://intergrowth21.com/research/brain-atlas-project.
References
1. Namburete AIL, Papież BW, Fernandes M, et al. Normative spatiotemporal fetal brain maturation with satisfactory development at 2 years. Nature 2023 623: 106–114.
2. University of Oxford. Publication of first normative digital atlas of human fetal brain, https://intergrowth21.com/news/publication-first-normative-digital-atlas-human-fetal-brain (2023, accessed 31 October 2023).