The Loi de programmation de la recherche pour les années 2021 à 2030 et portant diverses dispositions relatives à la recherche et à l’enseignement supérieur was adopted on December 24, 2020.
This Act, among many other topics, discusses the prospects for non-animal research.
In the attached report, one of the major open questions in science is: “ Supporting the development and raising the profile in France of alternatives to the use of animals for scientific and educational purposes “.
With this in mind, it was decided to “ the creation of a national center dedicated to the “three Rs” principle, backed by public research, and in particular by the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique and the Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement, with appropriate resources, will enable the development of training on this theme, promote the engineering of project in line with this principle, encourage the exchange of animal lines and negative research results to avoid unnecessary duplication of projects, encourage the funding of research into the development of alternative methods, and ensure transparent communication on the use of animals for scientific purposes. The center will contribute, in close coordination with the National Commission for protection of animals used for scientific purposes, to the consolidation of a constructive national dialogue around this growing societal concern”. .
In 2021, the center has been created in the form of a GIS (Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique), named FC3R. It is carrying out its various missions to the best of its ability, within the limits of the resources allocated to it by the public authorities and the research institutions that are members of the GIS. However, these resources are far from sufficient to enable it to carry out all the actions required to move forward on the path to transition.
Another important direction is the development of digital technologies and the possibility of building“digital twins” of living beings:
“ By combining artificial intelligence, modeling and data assimilation (clinical, biological, genomic, imaging, etc.), we are on the verge of being able to build digital twins of living beings. These will enable us, for example, to personalize cancer treatment or test various surgical scenarios. The digital twin of a laboratory animal will also make it possible to carry out certain tests by digital simulation, thus limiting the need for animal experimentation. .
FC3R organized a webinar on immune digital twins on February 6, 2025. The video of this webinar is available here.
