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The End Of Animal Testing? Virginia Tech Researchers Given Grant To Improve Drug Testing
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RICHMOND, Va. -- With a quickly developing world, researchers for decades have been able to improve the quality of human life with drug treatments. But to get those drugs tested requires a long series of tests, government approvals, and certifications. However, researchers with Virginia Tech hope they will soon be able to ease some of those requirements.
Virginia Tech announced Monday the approval of a $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health aimed at developing a new solution to give human-oriented results with synthetic tools.
Testing of new drugs on humans is typically part of a clinical trial that occurs near the end of the drug's path to public use. And as recently as 2022 the FDA committed to exploring alternative methods to replace using lab animals in testing.
Those calls to do away with animal testing are for a number of reasons such as ethical concerns and because of the differences in animal and human biology.
Virginia Tech's Jeff Schultz will be joining the group of academic researchers working to find a solution. Their hypothetical approach would use new technologies to create testing environments that are customized to the study.
Simply but the drugs would be tested on cells rather than humans or creatures.
Put into practice
One area where researchers say they are seeing a upside to the new technology is with physiological barriers. One such as the so called 'blood-brain barrier' that is a network of blood vessels and tissues inside of the brain.
The barrier researchers say allows substances like water and oxygen to enter the brain while keeping out harmful substances that could lead to disease or tumors. "Recreating this intricate environment for drug testing has been challenging, and it is not uncommon for clinical trials to fail when they move from the lab," Virginia Tech explained in a release.
The team will now use a 3-d printing method to create microfluids at previously unattainable resolutions that are reproducible and scalable.
While this project is focused on the blood-brain barrier, the core technology has wide-ranging applications for other organs such as the liver, lungs, and skin.
"We're building something that more realistically mimics the geometry of the body compared to other microfluidics," said Schultz. "Harnessing the design freedom of 3D printing allows us to create devices that have the same curvature, size of veins, and functionality of the human body. We can put in valves similar to the heart that are accustomed to pulsating mechanical stresses. This gives us the opportunity to see results that are closer to real life than if the cells were laying flat in a dish, and is done in other conventional microfluidic devices, but has yet to be applied to the blood brain barrier."
Teams with Georgia Tech and Harvard Medical School are joining Virginia Tech in this research.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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VA Disputes Claim That Removing Race From Lung Tests Would Greatly Alter Disability Payments
Veterans Affairs department officials said Monday they have launched a study to determine how removing race from widely used lung function tests may affect disability benefits for veterans, and they expect the impact to be much smaller than predicted in a study published earlier this year.
They also said veterans who may have heard about the issue should not be concerned about any sudden changes to their benefits. Any changes, said Olumayowa Famakinwa, who oversees implementation of the VA's rating schedule for disabilities, would come with ample notification and the ability for veterans to appeal.
"If I was talking to a veteran, I'd say, give us some time, but we'll figure it out for sure and you can remain confident you will get the benefits you've earned," he said.
In 2023, in response to outcries that using race in pulmonary function tests can underestimate the extent of disease in Black patients, and to a smaller extent in Asian patients, the American Thoracic Society released new guidelines stating that the use of race was contributing to health disparities and should be ended. A race-based equation had long been used to guide interpretations of results from spirometry tests and over time were built into the software of the machines.
The tests are used to help diagnose lung disease and guide treatment decisions, as well as in determining disability payments.
A study published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed how a race-free equation might affect patients. Using data from a large population study, the authors estimated that the change could affect more than 400,000 veterans and lead to redistribution of nearly $2 billion dollars, with 17% more overall going to Black veterans and just over 1% less going to white veterans.
In an interview with STAT, veterans officials said they thought the study had vastly overestimated the number of veterans who were entitled to benefits and the amount that benefits might change for individuals, because the researchers did not use VA numbers but extrapolations from population-wide data.
"As far as I can tell, there was no VA engagement in that manuscript," said David Au, a pulmonologist who directs the Veterans Health Administration's Center for Care and Payment Innovation. "We would have been happy to help contribute."
Au said he appreciated the attention the study had brought to the issue, but hoped the study could be corrected or revised or that the authors would work with the VA in the future to create more precise estimates.
The study's lead author, Arjun Manrai, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard, said he appreciated the VA's comments and agreed the populations were not as precise as they would have been had the authors used VA data directly.
But he said he believed the larger finding, that Black veterans might be due additional benefits if pulmonary function tests, or PFTs, employed race-free equations, was not likely to change. "Ultimately, we are confident in our estimates of the direction and magnitude of changes expected with widespread adoption of race-neutral PFTs," he told STAT, adding that he would like to see the VA's data.
VA officials said potential changes to disability payments were not likely to be as large as the study estimated for a number of reasons. First, pulmonary function tests are only one factor in determining lung disability. A wide range of tests and other factors, such as whether people need bronchodilators to control asthma or have been prescribed outpatient oxygen, are also used.
Furthermore, Famakinwa said, most disability claims include a number of service-related disabilities, so altering the amount of lung disability among myriad other claims might reduce or increase a disability award very little or not at all.
The VA began studying the issue after the ATS recommendation was released and it hopes to determine a new policy by September 2025, said Au, who added he was fully on board with the larger issue of removing race from clinical algorithms but said removing them in pulmonology was not straightforward. "This is really an implementation problem," Au said. "It's messy and it's complex."
He said VA officials do not want to make a change that may introduce a new health disparity. "Ten years ago, 15 years ago, there were disparities in care delivery in the VA. The most recent data has shown we've eliminated most disparities in terms of treatment and outcome [for lung cancer] between Black and white veterans," he said. "What we were concerned about is if we implemented this wholesale, would we induce new disparities."
As an example, he cited a JAMA Surgery paper published last year that showed Black patients might be less likely to receive a more aggressive and more effective lung cancer surgical option if their lung function was assessed using race-neutral equations. "That was alarming to us," Au said.
Another issue is that if relatively simple PFT tests are replaced by more complex tests that are not offered at every VA hospital, it could create access barriers for veterans with transportation issues or other complications. "Every time you add a layer of complexity to testing, you drop out a population," Au said.
Au said decisions about how to administer the tests were up to individual VA centers, and 30% had begun to use the race-free equation, while the rest had not, causing some problems for continuity of care. The VA has paused roll out of the changes for the time being, he said. "We really want [changes] to be consistent and equitable across the system," he said.
The VA moved more quickly to implement race-free tests for kidney function, but Au said that was a simpler decision because nephrologists had a gold-standard test in that case and data modeling showed a race-free equation had a similar performance. Pulmonary function tests, he said, have no gold standard or new data analyses and are affected by a wide variety of factors including ancestry, poverty, and air pollution, making the issue far less clear. "I wish we were nephrologists," he said.
The story has been updated to clarify that David Au meant to say the VA had curbed disparities in lung cancer, not in all areas of medicine.
Virginia Commonwealth Veteran Benefits
The commonwealth of Virginia provides several veteran benefits. This page explains those benefits.
Virginia Veterans HomesVirginia has three veterans homes, in Richmond, Roanoke and Virginia Beach.
An additional home in Puller is under construction.
Honorably discharged veterans who are residents of Virginia are eligible for admission. There may be a cost.
Virginia Veteran Financial Benefits Income TaxActive Duty Pay - Up to $15,000 of military basic pay may be exempted from Virginia income tax.
For every $1 of income over $15,000, the maximum subtraction is reduced by $1. For example, if your basic pay is $16,000, you are entitled to deduct only $14,000. You are not eligible for the subtraction if your military basic pay is $30,000 or more
For Virginia National Guard members, up to 39 calendar days of service or $3,000 (whichever is less) may be deducted from your income when filing. This deduction is available only for O-3 and below.
Retired Pay - Retirees 55 and older receive a $20,000 exemption in the 2023 tax year; $30,000 in 2024, with the age limit expiring in this tax year; and $40,000 in 2025 and beyond.
Disabled Veterans Real Estate Tax ExemptionVeterans with a Department of Veterans Affairs 100% permanent and total disability are exempt from property taxes on their home.
The surviving spouse may also be eligible.
Virginia Veterans Employment Benefits Virginia Veterans Preference For State JobsVeterans seeking state employment can get a 5% addition to their test score. Disabled veterans can get a 10% addition.
The Virginia Transition Assistance Program (VTAP)This program offers transitioning service members and their spouses peer-to-peer support through the transition process. The referral services include such things as resume review, introduction to the labor market, and connections with certified companies for employment, and other DVS programs as applicable.
Troops to TrucksQualified military personnel and veterans who have been separated for 12 months or less are only required to pass the knowledge test for a CDL license. The road skills test is waived. This applies to those with two or more years of military heavy truck/bus driving experience.
Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education ProgramThe Military Survivors and Dependents Program provides educations benefits to spouses and children of military service members killed, missing in action, taken prisoner, or who became at least 90% disabled as a result of military service in an armed conflict.
This program may pay for tuition and fees at any state-supported college or university in Virginia. Benefits are available for up to 36 months.
Virginia Veterans Recreation Benefits Disabled Veteran Hunting & Fishing LicensesVirginia offers a free lifetime hunting and fishing license, and a discounted saltwater license for Virginia resident veterans who are permanently and totally service-connected disabled.
Veterans with at least 70% VA disability can get discounted hunting and freshwater fishing licenses
Active Duty Hunting and Fishing LicenseActive duty members stationed in Virginia can get hunting & fishing licenses for the resident rate.
State Park AdmissionVeterans with 100% VA disability are eligible for free admission and parking and admission for the pass holder and anyone needed to assist them at Virginia state parks.
The pass also covers boat launch and horse trailer parking and a 50% discount on camping, swimming, shelters and equipment rental.
You do not need to be a Virginia resident to qualify.
Virginia Veterans CemeteriesVirginia has three veterans cemeteries located in Amelia, Dublin, and Suffolk.
Honorably discharged veterans may be buried at no cost, there is a small cost for their eligible family members.
Visit the Virginia Department of Veterans Services website for more information on any of these programs.
Stay on Top of Your Veteran BenefitsMilitary benefits are always changing. Keep up with everything from pay to health care by subscribing to Military.Com, and get access to up-to-date pay charts and more with all latest benefits delivered straight to your inbox.
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