Meeting Reports

ALTEX 38(1), 2021 163 Sciences, which he initiated. He encouraged scientists to use the database and contribute their own formulations and experience with alternative media. Subsequently, a human-based supplement medium was presented, which consists of human platelet lysates (hPL) obtained from expired blood donations. Dr Karen Bieback, professor at the University of Heidelberg and head of the stem cell quality control lab at the German Red Cross Blood Donor Service Institute Mannheim, highlighted the advantages of this medium for use in stem cell cultures. The regulatory perspective was reflected by Dr Sandra Coecke from the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (JRC, EURL-ECVAM). She talked about the advantages of chemically-defined media and explained her work on the Guidance Document on Good In Vitro Method Practices (GIVIMP), a key tool for ensuring reproducible study data generation omitting ill-defined animal-derived ingredients like FBS. Two practical applications for cell cultures in FBS-free media were presented next. Dr Aline Chary from the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology (LIST) used the alveolar epithelial type II A549 cell line as an example to explore how to transition cells to FBS-free media. She works towards the goal of complete replacement of animal-derived components for cell culture of A549 cells, which are commonly used in respiratory toxicology testing. Dr Joachim Wiest (CEO of cellasys GmbH) presented the cellasys #8 assay, a protocol to investigate the interaction between cell culture medium and cellular models by means of extracellular acidification rate (EAR) measurement and electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS). Using this assay, the suitability of FBSfree media for cell cultures can be assessed within 24 h. A wide variety of topics were discussed during the panel discussion, including positive and negative experiences with FBSfree media, proprietary media formulations, and comparisons between the costs of FBS and alternative media. It was emphasized that even though alternatives to FBS might still be more costly, supposedly lower prices for a medium supplement that is ethically questionable, unregulated, and undefined can have far greater negative financial effects on research work due to potential scientific inaccuracies and lack of reproducibility. A controversial topic was the state of the fetus during blood extraction. If blood is collected from a living fetus in the last third of its development, it should be regarded as a procedure according to Directive 2010/63/EU. However, even if the animal dies before Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is used by default as an additive for cell, organ and tissue culture media in biomedical research and testing to enhance cell growth and proliferation. These cultures are valuable as a means of replacing and reducing animal experiments. However, despite this potential, there are severe animal welfare issues associated with the collection of FBS, since it is derived from animal sources and its production and use are associated with ethically and legally questionable practices, scientific challenges, and animal suffering. It is, therefore, of paramount importance to draw the attention of the scientific community towards this topic to increase the awareness and acceptance of alternatives to FBS and to train scientists and lab technicians in transition techniques to FBS-free culture media to contribute to the development of truly animal-free alternatives to animal experiments. Thanks to the generous financial support of the Renate Benthlin-Stiftung für Nutztierschutz, the Animal Welfare Academy of the German Animal Welfare Federation was able to organize a fullday online symposium on replacing FBS. Speakers from universities, industry, regulatory authorities, and animal welfare NGOs presented the current status of the collection and use of FBS, and the ethical and scientific advantages of FBS-free alternatives. Tilo Weber, scientific officer at the Animal Welfare Academy of the German Animal Welfare Federation reported on the massive animal suffering in the production of FBS, which is harvested from the blood of bovine fetuses. Distress and suffering already begin with the transport of pregnant dams to the slaughterhouse. Therefore, veterinary examinations should be implemented beforehand to avoid transportation and slaughter of pregnant animals. Furthermore, the calf fetuses are neither killed by a certified humane killing method that fulfills animal welfare standards nor do they receive pain relief or anesthetics during the process. As long as FBS is still produced, legally binding regulations are indispensable that must at least implement mandatory anesthesia and/or humane killing of the fetuses. Dr Jan van der Valk, Director of the 3Rs-Centre Utrecht Life Sciences, pointed out the scientific challenges of using FBS: The exact composition of FBS is unknown, there is a risk of contamination with pathogens, and reproducibility of scientific experiments suffers from inconsistencies between FBS batches. Therefore, xenofree media (e.g., human-based medium for human cells) or fully chemically-defined media are key to ensure scientific reproducibility. He gave insight into the establishment of the database for FBS-free media1 hosted by the 3Rs-Centre Utrecht Life Meeting Report

[13] Nakamura, M.,Agr/. Biol. Chem., 1968 32, 6,701. [14] Kainuma, K., Tadokoro, K., Sugawara, K. and Suzukis, S., Dempun Kogyo Gakkaishi, 1967 The Group was instructed to propose a policy which the Committee might pursue in the important area of instrument testing. Those present represented the three major participating sectors in the membership of ECCLS with three members from government, three from industry and seven from the professions. * During a wide-ranging discussion the following conclusions were reached: 1. Work in the area of instrument evaluation should be given a high priority in the initial programme for the ECCLS.
Evaluation protocols should be produced as quickly as possible and a scheme should be inaugurated for organising instrument evaluations to cover the member countries of ECCLS. 2. For the above purposes a Working Group should be formed with a membership coverage similar to that of the present ad hoc group but including a professional statisti- certain specific areas, ie a photometer or a syringe system if present. Testing should be done to a parametric standard, ie the protocol should describe how the test is to be carried out and should not lay down limits. 5. Any previous testing done by the US National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) or another organisation should be taken into account in arriving at conclusions. If instruments have been in use in laboratories prior to the testing scheme commencing, user experience should be canvassed.
6. A general protocol should be produced to cover all types of instruments for all specialties within pathology. This would then be divided into sections including for example (a) electrical safety (this must comply with the rules in individual countries), (b) haematology, (c) clinical chemistry. Clinical Chemistry and haematology would then be broken down for various types of instruments, ie for clinical chemistryflame photometers and colorimeters. Several instruments (eg colorimeters) are common. 7. Each instrument will inevitably require a slightly different approach and the ECCLS must therefore determine a revised protocol applicable to a particular instrument before testing is commenced.
8. Special arrangements should be made for instruments specifically constructed for use in doctors' surgeries, wards, etc. 9. Before every evaluation a contract should be carefully drawn up between the producer and the testing organisation. The evaluation process should be done as quickly as possible. All instruments tested must be productionmodels. No prototypes should be tested in the proposed scheme. Testing should always be done against a carefully prepared protocol and there should therefore be no chance of litigation by the producer. 10. The overall arrangements must include a means whereby the producer can comment upon the final report, and his comments should be published with the report. To cover the costs of each evaluation, it is proposed that the manufacturer should loan, install and maintain instruments in the testing laboratories throughout the trial. The actual costs of the trial should not be born by the instrument manufacturer, thereby ensuring independence for the testing procedure. An endeavour should be made to pool finances currently used by governments etc for testing purposes. The final report, whether favourable or not, should be made widely available .and consideration should be given to the sale of reports. It would be hoped that users in all member countries of ECCLS would accept the results of instrument testing using the suggested arrangements.
Dr Esser of the Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt, West Berlin, is currently gathering information on evaulation procedures in other countries and hopes to be able to make this information available as a data base for ECCLS. He also offered to use his good offices in an endeavour to rationalise finance for activity in the area. This was followed by a paper from Dr E.Ho Hansen, a colleague of Dr Ruzicka who described some recent developments in FIA based on the. use of potentiometric and spectrophotometric flow-through detectors.
Among the many .topics covered by Dr Hansen in his talk were the development of microelectrodes to enable measurements of pH, pCa etc to be made accurately in a flowing stream using samples of only a'few microlitres, and the use of merging-zone FIA to reduce reagent consumption to only a few microlitres per sample for analyses requiring very expensive reagents, such as certain enzymes.
After a short break for coffee, the session resumed with a paper given by T.J. Sly .describing a system under development at University College Swansea which utilises FIA as a post-column detector for reducing sugars separated by HPLC. The system employs a sampling valve to inject samples of column effluent at regular intervals into a stream of a colour-forming reagent, and the sugar concentration is detected using a novel flow-through photometer which was described in some detail.
The final paper.of the morning session was given by Dr J.N. Miller who presented a number of FIA systems developed at Loughborough University using fluorescence and luminescence detectors, and described how these techniques could be applied to the ietermination of albumin in serum using an energy-transfer immunoassay, and the study of drug-protein binding parameters by fluorescence. Dr Miller showed, how, in both the examples mentioned above., stopped-flow and merging-zone techniques had been employed to minimise reagent consumption.
After a pleasant lunch, the conference resumed for the afternoon session, which opened with a paper by Dr C.P. Optical Scanning) analyser system, an interesting machine which embodies many of the features of the centrifugal analyser in what is basically a conventional automated discrete analyser.
The system features an optical assembly rotating at high speed in the centre of a sample carousel, thereby allowing rapid scanning of the reaction mixtures without the limitation of having to change an entire batch of samples at once, as in the centrifugal analyser. Dr Mitchell then went on to describe the new Kodak Ektachem analysis system, and offered his views on the way in which this kind of technology would affect the job of the clinical chemist in the future.
The organising committee are to be thanked for having put together such an interesting meeting,, and it is hoped that other joint meetings of this type will be organised in the future. Summaries of the papers presented at the meeting are to appear shortly in Analytical Proceedings.