Coalition to Illuminate and Address Animal Methods Bias

@thecolaab.bsky.social

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The Coalition to Illuminate and Address Animal Methods Bias is a global collaboration addressing the preference for animal-based research methods or the lack of expertise to adequately evaluate nonanimal methods. https://www.animalmethodsbias.org/

These publications point to the same constraint: Peer review expectations can undermine efforts to reduce animal use, and addressing animal methods bias is key to removing this barrier.
Du et al. echo one of our major recommendations for reform: Studies must be judged on their "methodological rigor and alignment with human biology" and editors should flag requests for additional, unnecessary animal experiments. Overcoming paradigm inertia: publishing incentives and peer review bias as the true rate-limiting steps in reducing animal research Journal of Translational Medicine (2026) Yining Du, Yuan Fang, and Shiwei Ni
"In practice, this bias represents a major rate-limiting step in clinical translation. Even when a research question can be definitively and more human-relevantly answered using validated human-derived in vitro or in silico models, investigators routinely face review comments demanding traditional in vivo alignment." Overcoming paradigm inertia: publishing incentives and peer review bias as the true rate-limiting steps in reducing animal research Journal of Translational Medicine (2026) Yining Du, Yuan Fang, and Shiwei Ni
“[D]ecisions to conduct in vivo experiments are not always fully under the control of researchers, as pressure from peer review and publishing, including animal methods bias, can favour their inclusion.” We need less animal research, better animal research, and animal research done for the right reasons Journal of Translational Medicine (2026) Benjamin Victor Ineichen
Animal methods bias is showing up in more discussions about the barriers to reducing the use of animals
A graphic with the title "Busy Conferencing!" Overlaid on a map of the United States are two photos of women standing in front of conference posters. Stars and arrows show that Mikalah Singer attended the Society for Scholarly Publishing in Chula Vista, CA and Kathrin Herrmann and Catharine Krebs attended the Microphysiological Systems World Summit in Washington D.C.
How NIH's Center for Scientific Review is Addressing Animal Methods Bias. CSR uses the ENQUIRE process to continuously evaluate and update study sections. Recent ENQUIRE evaluations have highlighted the need for study sections to cover NAMs. Study section descriptions are being updated, and new study sections are being formed to better fit emerging methods. CSR is actively recruiting reviewers with NAMs expertise. Applicants can initiate CSR’s bias reporting mechanism. All reports are investigated and affected applications are considered for re-review.
The popular "woman yelling at dinner cat" meme with the following text: "Animal methods bias is inevitable! Not if you use the COLAAB's author guide"
A graphic with a photo of Big Ben on the left and the following text: "Animal methods bias update. UK Home Office will take measures to reduce animal methods bias in publishing. New strategy promises to: "Strengthen the commitment of journal editors to publishing research using alternative methods."" The COLAAB logo is in the bottom right corner.
Well-known 4-panel meme of SpongeBob SquarePants reading a paper and then throwing the paper into the fire and warming his hands. In this version, the paper reads, "Reviewer 3: "These in vitro findings must be validated in an animal model," and SpongeBob is wearing a purple witch hat.
Screenshot from the April 27, 2011 Nature World View article by Hidde Ploegh titled "End the wasteful tyranny of reviewer experiments." The authors of this post have added to the title, making it "End the wasteful tyranny of reviewer animal experiments." The article has been accessed 18,000 times, cited 41 times, and has an altmetric score of 488. The subtitle reads: "Peer review of scientific papers in top journals is bogged down by unnecessary demands for extra lab work, argues Hidde Ploegh."
A screenshot from Animalfree Research’s registration webpage for “Perception and Power: Barriers to Animal-Free Research.” The description reads: “Our 15th Forum on the barriers to animal-free research will take place on 10th November 2025 at the Volkshaus Zurich. It is aimed at all people interested in animal-free research and will be held in English. We accept registrations until 5th November 2025.” On the right, there’s a photo of a fluffy orange cat looking into an oval mirror with an ornate gold frame. A lion is reflected in the mirror, looking back at the cat.
NAM Journal Volume 1, 2025, 100042 A survey to evaluate animal methods bias experienced by India-based researchers in the peer review of manuscripts and grant applications Surat Parvatam a Karishma Kaushik b Kasturi Mahadik c Goutami Nayak c Tejaswini Dhurde c Francesca Pistollato d Helder Constantino d Bipasha Gautam a Harshita Mittal a Catharine E. Krebs e
NAM Journal Volume 1, 2025, 100004 NAM Journal Meeting Report Exploring animal methods bias in biomedical research funding: Workshop proceedings and action steps Author links open overlay panel Catharine E. Krebs a Sven Geissler b Kathrin Herrmann c Kenneth Kandaras d Owen Kavanagh e Laura M. Langan f Francesca Pistollato g Sandeep Raha h Ignacio J. Tripodi i Emily R. Trunnell j
Author Guide for Addressing Animal Methods Bias in Publishing. The COLAAB developed this guide to help ensure the fair dissemination of animal-free research and to prevent unnecessary experiments on animals. It is intended to be used by authors who use nonanimal methods and may help prevent and address animal methods bias from manuscript reviewers.
Text over a photograph of people's hands and arms looking over papers, fading to blue. The text reads: "Fair peer review is critical - for science, for patients, and for animals. This Peer Review Week, we call on publishers, funders, and meta-researchers to investigate and address Animal Methods Bias."
LinkedIn post from Martijn van Griensven, Chair of the Department CBITE at MERLN, Maastricht University. The post reads: "we have now two papers rejected after revision just because we did not include in vivo experiments! We have a lot of in vitro data and that is also acknowledged by the reviewers. But for each paper, one of the reviewers wants in vivo data as that would be nice to have....and then after revising all the comments and stating in vivo is out of the scope and with getting the licence etc. would be more than one year we cannot include in vivo data, the editors of "International Journal of Biological Macromolecules" from Elsevier and "Frontiers in Biotechnology and bioengineering" just rejected it on that fact.... they should state in their guidelines you cannot publish with them without in vivo data...(which is going against the trend of trying to diminish in vivo experiments)...." It has been liked 490 times, has 50 comments, had has been shared in 19 reposts.
Screenshot from the PDF version of the linked paper, "A survey to evaluate animal methods bias experienced by India-based researchers in the peer review of manuscripts and grant applications."
Dark blue background with a faded illustration of an organoid. The text reads: “Peer review guidelines for reporting and evaluating in vitro studies.” The COLAAB logo is at the bottom.
Graphic showing the logo for the 2025 13th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences, a background image of Rio de Janeiro, and a photo of Emily Trunnell. The text reads: “3Rs Integrating 3 Worlds. Human, Animal, and Environmental Health. August 31 – September 5, 2025. Addressing animal methods bias in scientific publishing. Wed Sept 3 11:30am. Session #74. I am speaking!”
Screenshot from the linked webpage, under the section titled "Proposed interventions." The following sentence is highlighted: "Making peer review reports available for external meta-researchers to investigate possible occurrences of animal methods bias in various research fields and demographics."
Screenshot from section 3.1 of the linked paper, with the following sentence highlighted: "Among other benefits, open peer review may improve the quality, transparency, and reproducibility of research, and it may prevent or mitigate biases, including animal methods bias."
Graphic with an image of several beige doors in a row, with one orange open door. Text on the graphic reads: "Update. Nature commits to transparent peer review. As of June 16, all new research articles submitted to the journal will automatically include the reviewers' reports and authors responses. Policies like these can facilitate the identification and mitigation of animal methods bias." At the bottom is the COLAAB logo and website: www.animalmethodsbias.org.
Quote graphic with a blue background and large yellow and red circles. The quote reads, "[G]rant review staff will participate in mitigation training to address any possible bias toward animal studies and integrate experts on alternative methods into study sections." and is attributed to Danilo Tagle, Ph.D., Director of the Office for Special Initiatives, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and includes his headshot. The quote is from the Cell Stem Cell paper DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2025.05.009. The COLAAB logo is at the bottom left.