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 & 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, in
addition to Animal Law Week,
we decided to host 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,
or 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 the executive director of
the New England Anti-Vivisection
Society.
So he's going to be lead off,
talking about 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 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.
Well, that doesn't count, Kate.
And how many have been
to like three or four?
All right.
Almost everybody-- really cool.
So yeah.
And huge thanks to Chris for
hosting us this week as well.
Amazing, 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 to start
by talking a little bit
about NEAVS, the organization
that I run, as a whole.
And then, I'll move into the
work that we've done this week.
And the reason I'm
doing that is because I
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, who's--
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.
So when I was in third
grade, I had just
moved to the Boston
area from Chicago.
And I was with my dad
at 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 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.
You know, 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 crowd
that had gathered
around one of the windows.
And I was curious, and
so I walked up there.
Then 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
taking it out of its mouth
and smearing it on the
window and then picking it
back up again and putting
it back in its mouth
and chewing on it again.
It was only after
a minute or two
of looking at the
faces of their parents
and the children who were
pointing and laughing,
and then back at the
gorilla, to realize
that what the animal was
doing was taking its own feces
and eating it and swiping it
and repeatedly doing this.
And it was the first
time in my life
that I had realized
that the animals that
were kept in these
types of circumstances
weren't quite right.
And I wasn't really old enough
to process how wrong that was
and how broken the animal was
who was having to do that.
But it really started
to inform my thinking,
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 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 always thought that was
a little ambitious of him.
But 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--
I had been volunteering for the
local Humane Society shelter
and all that kind of stuff.
And that was sort of 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
at 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.
For example, they
have these wolves
that 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 my
next realization point,
where I started to move beyond
just this concept of just
liking animals to realizing that
there was something, really,
that we needed to do to try
to address animal suffering.
So anyway, I went to law school,
and 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 is that it
had this great, grand history.
And I really struggle
with that, right?
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 were 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
took a step back
and realized that we could get
a lot of the same information
through the Freedom
of Information Act.
We hired us a couple
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 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 that category
E experiments are
the 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 millions
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
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.
Excuse me.
My pizza's coming back up.
And so assuming that we have
a really good opportunity
to work with NIH and
USDA to 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 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 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.
You can get some really
substantial victories
by working 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 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.
OK.
Just a couple 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 is from a similar--
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 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 UMass
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.
It was a marmoset again.
And in the post-treatment thing,
they put a heating blanket onto
the animal--
put the heating
blanket 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 there--
more pizza, excuse me--
at 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 years ago.
And in the case that
we found, you know,
they have a ton of animals
at these places, mostly dogs
and cats.
And they're doing 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 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 to try to let them--
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
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 into 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 costs
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 is 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 computational
model, where you're
able to plug in a lot
of data that 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.
And 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-- excuse me--
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 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.
1, 2-- all right, cool--
3.
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 of minutes.
Actually, I'll talk
about it right now.
So the Good Food Institute 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 years ago
had decided in one
of their meetings
that they wanted to look at
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 Jr. just brought
the Beyond Burger,
and Impossible is
all over the place--
and Hampton Creeks,
which is now JUST foods,
and a series of other companies
that have been supported.
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 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 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 US government agencies,
by itself, is probably
north of $20 billion.
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 this 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, the 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 focused 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,
a 501(c)(3) nonprofit,
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,
right?
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 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 is beneficial to
human health and welfare that
probably won't be able to be
replaced by new technologies
in this time frame.
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.
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
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
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 shrifted
and not much funding.
Now that's sort of
reversed with this rise
of effective altruism.
And you hear this common mantra
of how many animals can I
save per dollar.
People are looking
in the aggregate.
And when you have
$60-plus-billion farmed animal,
just 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 that, as
you see with this VA
committee and the NIH
committee a few years back,
that basically brought it into
federally funded chimp testing,
there's a lot--
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
that it's really important
to be involved in this.
So I just want to turn
over to Kate and just say,
I was really shocked to
find during this past week
that there are 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 what their viability,
and how their being used?
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Yeah, I'm happy to.
So I've been, just as a
slight bit of introduction--
I don't know if this is on.
CHRIS GREEN: Oh, let's see.
The green light is on.
There we go.
CATHERINE WILLETT: OK.
Thanks.
So my history-- for about
15, 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--
and 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 ameliorations.
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, 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 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 and
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 the biology is not--
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 away.
And there's a
transition happening.
And it's happening in
our federal government,
in the pharmaceutical
industry, as well as--
well, the 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, in 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 the-- my
analogy is, like,
a bridge being out
and not having a sign,
where so you conduct an
experiment that doesn't work,
but none of those
results get published.
So all these people after them
keep driving in and falling,
driving off the bridge, which
is a waste of their time,
it's a waste of money, and
it's a waste of animal lives.
So finding some way to publish--
get some sort of
clearinghouse for that
would be great as well.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Exactly.
Yep.
That's it.
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?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Mm-hmm.
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
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 think when they
started in 2016,
right around the same time the
first cell-based meat company
got started, Memphis Meats--
and now, I think
there's close to 37,
just about three
years later, not even
two and a half years later.
And there's 37 different
cell-based meat companies,
or meat and other
products working
in the cellular egg space.
I mean, it just really shows
you the value that Good Food
Institute has had.
And 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 for us to help educate
the public about this
and help interact with
some of the regulators
and other government agencies
that have a stake in this.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Mm-hmm.
And there's a slight
added complexity
to this because unlike food,
where you're creating a product
and you're 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 that
they're--
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
open-ended questions, I mean,
that's a larger problem.
But even in the regulatory
space, where you know
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--
you know, 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 the companies are
getting it because there's
a chance to make a return
on their investment.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Mm-hmm.
CHRIS GREEN: Well, OK,
we'll give everyone
just a couple minutes.
If anyone needs to leave for
class, we'll let you leave now.
And then we'll start the
Q&A in a couple minutes.
Or get more pizza.
CATHERINE WILLETT: And some
of it's already happening.
You know?
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's right.
And I think that
there's going to be
potential-- one of the
things we were talking
about this week was the
potential for partnership
opportunities with the
pharmaceutical industry
and the chemical
industry in particular,
is the ones where there's
the highest potential profit
margin moving outside
of the regulatory talks
world with profit margins
probably significantly lower.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Yes, that's right.
Yeah.
Except in some of the sa--
I mean, because safety, for
pharma, has been a big--
it's been a big problem,
but it's also been--
they are not sure how
to approach it, really.
So, yeah.
I mean, it costs over $1 billion
to bring [? it ?] 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 until I get to you,
because we'd like that question
to be recorded as well.
OK.
Any questions?
There we go.
AUDIENCE: 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 what
you would expect background?
Like, is there a statistically
significant difference
between that and
non-animal screened trials?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Hm.
So, well, I'm not
exactly sure which number
he was referring to.
But the number that I have in
my mind is somewhere around 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 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 the 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 the 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 the animals.
So people say, oh, yeah.
Well, monkeys and humans,
they're 98% the same.
It's those 2%, that 2%
difference, that really--
it 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.
AUDIENCE: 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
is a great question.
Thanks.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Do 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.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
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 that
is the global situation.
So people will always
go where it's cheaper,
where it's less regulated.
So the idea is 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,
prohibiting the sales
and testing of
cosmetics on animals.
So start simple.
But you also have to work
with other companies to--
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 onto
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 referring
to this just a moment ago, is
that there is not necessarily
the same incentive,
nor is there any sort
of requirement of
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 in my mind, that's
wastage of animal lives,
of taxpayer dollars, and more.
And on the primates
issue, totally agreed.
I think, actually, it's
a really big problem.
We can actually see
some examples of that.
Just to note a couple
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
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.
But I haven't seen--
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 already, you know-- 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 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 months ago now--
some Chinese
researchers successfully
cloned genetically-modified--
what were they, marmosets?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Yes.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Something.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Yeah.
And they're also using
CRISPR to do everything.
So they're know making
genetically-modified every
single species you can
think of, including humans.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah, 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 rule-making
into 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: A question here.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, thank you both
for your contributions today.
And I have two questions,
actually, one of which
is very technical,
technically oriented--
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Going to her.
AUDIENCE: --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, this idea
that the true negatives
aren't out there for
us to find, so we
keep driving off that cliff.
What about the
issue, and is anyone
focusing on this, 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 the 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 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
biophysical systems in humans.
But what about cognitive
and biochemical systems that
are being used to test
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 that this
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.
So 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 realized
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'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
Institute of Mental Health,
actually, are realizing
that their way,
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 drug--
I'm sorry, 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 signature,
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 help use that information
to help them understand
how to treat that person?
Yeah, because these
things are so complicated.
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.
On the first piece, just
a quick note that I do
think that there is
something-- 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 a 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 the problem with
poor research design
is that the result--
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: Yeah.
And you can do an analysis
to see the minimum animal
numbers that you would have
to have to get a statistically
significant difference.
And so I work at 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, 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--
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.
AUDIENCE: On the note of
affecting the pharmaceuticals'
bottom line, maybe the trick is
to just find not always to make
it affect their bottom line.
And 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
is no actual cost of using
that animal, whether it's
an administrative cost
or a financial cost.
So in both cases,
I think it probably
has 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 so this is how the NEAVS
and some new institutes
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 refiles 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
cosmetic 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
y'all happen to be
residents of other states.
We should check that.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
And just to add on to that,
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: And
it just struck me,
too, that one thing this
organization can maybe do
is to be the--
if alternatives
are available, you
could be a sort of
clearinghouse for listing
all the alternatives that have
been shown to work that then
people can refer back to.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I really enjoyed
this discussion.
I've got a question more about
this 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 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, 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 and
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 countermovement
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 curious about that.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Do you want
to touch on that one at all?
CATHERINE WILLETT: Well,
I could say something,
but I'm sure you have
something to say.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: No, go ahead.
Go.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Well,
I've been noticing the--
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 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.
But you have to--
one of the things that has so
much potential, this project,
is to--
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've
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 complex,
industrial complex--
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
development, which is
specifically targeted
to help animals, right?
And like the Purina
example, where
one of the things that
we're getting back from
NEAVS when we do this, 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 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 multibillion 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, 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
training that way.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
CHRIS GREEN: And 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 we've seen a lot of
growth in that as well.
Got a question back here?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Hi.
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: That's
another one for you, I think.
CATHERINE WILLETT: Yeah.
Well, interestingly, I think
both of those things are true.
So because of the way
the preclinical stuff
is structured right now,
these new tissues and stuff
will all be tested on animals
before they go into humans.
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 situation.
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.
The Harvard Wyss Institute has a
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--
and actually you
already said this,
but I just want to reiterate
it-- is 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 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--
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Yeah, animal data.
NATHAN HERSCHLER:
--animal research data
that's 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 the National Institute 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--
you know, it's 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 as
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,
with your 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.
AUDIENCE: A related question--
and I guess I'm thinking
about the big picture.
There's a very plausible,
very persuasive argument
if we can find a ways of
not using other species.
So there's a pathway, in terms
of technology and practice
and so forth, to
get to that point.
Where are we at, in terms
of just the technology,
the techniques, the
alternatives that would
be functional, plausible--
what's the timeline that you
can see for that, putting aside
the cultural change
and the investment,
all that sort of stuff?
CATHERINE WILLETT: I'd say
the technology is quite far
ahead of--
well, obviously, it's far
ahead of the implementation.
So there are,
well, 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 that's--
CATHERINE WILLETT: Actually, it
may not be out of the question.
And it also depends on the will.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: That's right.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
Because if we decided
that that was the goal,
as the United States,
as a culture, like
getting to the moon, yeah,
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 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
hundred at this point?
CHRIS GREEN: It was $330,000.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: $330,000.
CHRIS GREEN: So price per pound
was about a million dollars
per pound.
Then you went from the
$330,000 hamburger to then
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 a million dollars
a pound down to around a
few thousand dollars a pound
just in a couple of years, on a
graph, that looks really good.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
It would look really good.
Yeah.
I'll take that.
CHRIS GREEN: And this
brings up another area.
We aren't just talking
about biomedical research
and 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.
And so to create a
plant-based product,
you had to kill animals.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
To get it to market.
CHRIS GREEN: So there's a lot
of room for alternatives here.
NATHAN HERSCHLER: Yeah.
And policy change,
because that's ridiculous.
CATHERINE WILLETT:
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: Yeah.
Absolutely.
CHRIS GREEN: 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]
