The 2026 prize and highly commended projects cover CAR T-cell evaluation, retinal gene therapy and human medulloblastoma models. The October announcement recognizes research published in earlier years.
The UK’s National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) announced the 2026 International 3Rs Prize on October 27, recognizing Weiqiang Chen for work performed at New York University. Kevin Achberger and Esther Becker received highly commended awards. The prize recognizes papers published between September 2022 and September 2025.
Chen’s team combined human bone-marrow, stromal and immune cells in an interconnected chip to evaluate chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. The NC3Rs report describes use of data from 209 leukemia patients to reproduce clinically observed patterns of remission, resistance and relapse. The grant will support standardization for higher-throughput screening, a patient-response assessment protocol and further comparison with patient outcomes.
At the University of Tübingen, Achberger’s team combined patient-derived retinal organoids with a chip to assess an experimental gene therapy for CLN2 disease, a form of Batten disease. Disease-related features improved in the model, and NC3Rs reports that the efficacy data supported authorization of a first-in-human trial. Becker’s University of Oxford team used human cerebellar organoids to study medulloblastoma. The organoids showed increased cell growth, genomic instability and molecular profiles resembling patient tumors, addressing species differences that can limit mouse models.
A four-center NIH network is studying transporters in the placenta, mammary gland, pediatric intestine and brain. Its published overview describes how organoids, microphysiological systems and computational models contribute to that research strategy.
A microbe–gut–cartilage chip linked a probiotic-exposed intestinal module to human cartilage organoids. Five enriched metabolites were subsequently tested on cartilage organoids made from pooled cells from three osteoarthritis donors.
