From in vivo to in silico: The transition to animal-free, fundamental biomedical research

From in vivo to in silico: The transition to animal-free, fundamental biomedical research Speaker: Brett Lidbury Associate Professor, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH) Australian National University, Canberra The Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), together with the Ombion Centre for Animal-Free Biomedical Translation and the International Network for Humane Education (InterNICHE), invites you to the next webinar in the Alternatives and Simulation in Education series. Early education and training in the medical and biomedical sciences have long treated non-human animals as physiological stand-ins for humans, legitimising their widespread use in fundamental research. This assumption continues to shape how students are trained, how research questions are framed, and which methods are considered scientifically credible. In this webinar, Brett Lidbury draws on his own research trajectory to critically examine this paradigm. His earlier laboratory-based work focused on rodent models of post-viral infection, including studies on Ross River virus (RRV)—an arbovirus associated with post-viral fatigue and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). While these models yielded molecular, cellular, and immunological insights, their contribution to effective human diagnostics or treatments remained uncertain. Confronted with these limitations, Lidbury initiated a transition away from animal models toward animal-free alternatives, combining machine-learning approaches with human pathology data. In this talk, he will explore both the scientific and philosophical motivations behind this shift, as well as the practical and conceptual challenges involved in moving to a fundamentally different research and training paradigm. Hosted by CAAT, this session will focus on how such transitions: - challenge long-standing assumptions embedded in biomedical education, - inform the development of animal-free, human-relevant research training pathways, and - help prepare students and early-career researchers for a future grounded in NAMs, computational approaches, and human-based data, rather than animal experimentation. This webinar is particularly relevant for educators, researchers, and students interested in alternatives to animal use, in silico and data-driven methods, and the evolving role of simulation and non-animal approaches in life-science education. Speaker bio Brett Lidbury is an Associate Professor at the Australian National University. He completed his PhD at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (ANU) in viral engineering and cytokine biology and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Science of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. His work spans molecular virology, laboratory medicine, and the transition from animal-based to human-relevant, animal-free biomedical research.