Dr Victoria Roberton awarded £74K grant for her research

The NC3Rs is a UK-based scientific organisation that works nationally and internationally with the research community to replace, refine and reduce the use of animals in research and testing. 

Dr Victoria Roberton has been awarded her grant for her work on local immunosuppression to improve the welfare of animals in neural transplantation experiments.

Victoria has developed microparticles that release immunosuppressant over the course of a month. These can be injected into the brain at the same time as transplanting cells, removing the need for daily injections. She will now transfer the method to Dr Mariah Lelos (Cardiff University) who will apply the method to a rat model of Parkinson’s disease. Mariah will compare the survival of cells transplanted with microparticles to systemic immune suppression and monitor the impacts of both methods on animal welfare to further validate the new method.

Further information: 

• Dr Victoria Roberton staff profile
• Four new awards supporting 3Rs method transfer and uptake