A new £20 million hub led by Cambridge will try to make the early stages of medicine development more predictive by using human cells, organoids and .
The Medical Research Council's Pre- Translational Models Hub will combine patient- tissue, stem-cell systems, bioengineering and to build models that behave more like human disease before a reaches clinical trials.
One of the problems are trying to address is that medicines which appear promising in animal models can still fail when tested in people. More accurate human-based systems could help identify those failures earlier while also reducing reliance on animal testing.
The hub will make its methods available to researchers, NHS teams and companies around the country. The work is upstream, but better decisions before a trial begins can save years of work later.