LIFESAVER: Leading the Charge Toward a Zero-Pollution Future with Animal-Free Chemical Safety Testing

At LIFESAVER, we’re proud to be part of the European Green Deal’s ambitious vision: a Europe free from pollution by 2050. This vision, outlined in the European Commission’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, calls for bold action to protect humans and the environment from hazardous chemicals. As one of six Horizon 2020 Green Deal Health Cluster projects, LIFESAVER is at the forefront of this transformation, developing innovative solutions to replace outdated animal testing with cutting-edge, ethical, and sustainable methods.

A recent policy brief from the Green Deal Health Cluster underscores the urgent need for change in how we assess chemical safety. It highlights the limitations of animal testing and the game-changing potential of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). Here’s how LIFESAVER is contributing to this shift and helping build a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable future.

The Problem: Why Animal Testing Falls Short

For decades, chemical safety assessments have relied heavily on animal testing. But as the policy brief points out, this approach is in direct conflict with sustainability:

Ethical Concerns: Animal testing raises serious ethical questions, conflicting with our societal values.
High Costs and Delays: It’s expensive and time-consuming, slowing down the ability to test new chemicals efficiently.
Limited Insights: Animal testing provides limited information (e.g., it cannot properly mirror placental functionality), making it harder to assess complex mixtures or emerging hazards like PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), known as “forever chemicals.”

These limitations hinder our ability to achieve the Green Deal’s zero-pollution ambition. They also delay regulatory action, leaving humans and ecosystems exposed to risks. That’s where LIFESAVER steps in.

LIFESAVER’s Solution: Pioneering Animal-Free Testing with NAMs

LIFESAVER is developing New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) to revolutionize chemical safety assessments. These innovative methods provide faster, more ethical, and scientifically robust alternatives to animal testing. Here are some of the NAMs LIFESAVER and the broader Green Deal Health Cluster are working on:

Cell Bioassays: Testing basic toxicity and specific toxicological mechanisms, perfect for studying chemical mixtures. LIFESAVER is developing advanced in vitro systems, including biodigital twins, to assess chemical impacts on prenatal health.
Digital Systems: LIFESAVER is advancing hybrid digital in silico/in vitro (biodigital twin) systems to study chemical transmission, particularly across placental barriers, for ethical and sustainable safety assessments.
Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATA): Practical workflows for regulatory use. LIFESAVER’s work supports the development of IATA frameworks, aligning with regulatory needs.

Additionally, other NAMs are being advanced by the Green Deal Health Cluster and its partner projects:

Effect-Directed Analysis (EDA): Identifying the key chemical drivers in environmental, food, and human samples. This is primarily being developed by sister projects like PANORAMIX, which focus on mixture risk assessment, with LIFESAVER contributing indirectly through collaboration.
Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs): Connecting molecular, cellular, and organism-level data to inform regulators. While AOPs are part of the broader NAM landscape, LIFESAVER’s mechanistic data from in vitro systems and digital tools may support AOP development.
Kinetic Modeling: Quantifying how chemicals move through the body, linking external exposure to internal effects. This is being advanced by the Green Deal Health Cluster, with LIFESAVER’s digital systems potentially contributing data to support these efforts.
Skin Models: Studying healthy and diseased (e.g., psoriasis) human skin to assess chemical impacts. These models are being advanced by the Green Deal Health Cluster, with LIFESAVER’s mechanistic data potentially supporting broader NAM efforts.

These NAMs provide detailed mechanistic insights, enabling us to assess chemical groups and mixtures more effectively. They also align with the EU’s roadmap to phase out animal testing, supporting ethical science and sustainability across social, economic, and ecological dimensions.

Why This Matters: Aligning with EU Policy and Sustainability Goals

The Green Deal Health Cluster policy brief outlines five key recommendations to support the transition to animal-free regulation, and LIFESAVER is contributing to each one:

Faster Regulatory Action with NAMs: LIFESAVER’s cell bioassays and digital systems provide mechanistic data to assess chemical transmission, supporting quicker and more sustainable regulatory decisions. Sister projects like PANORAMIX enhance this effort with EDA for mixture risk assessment.
Improving NAM Validation: LIFESAVER’s work can benefit from new funding schemes and frameworks to validate NAMs, ensuring they’re ready for regulatory use.
Addressing Uncertainty: By quantifying uncertainties in NAM-based assessments and making them transparent, LIFESAVER is helping overcome regulatory hurdles and building trust in these methods.
Evolving Next-Generation Regulation: LIFESAVER’s NAMs are fostering the development of Next Generation Hazard and Risk Assessment (NGRA) and Next Generation Regulation (NGRE) frameworks, aligning with ongoing research in the Green Deal Health Cluster. AOPs and kinetic modeling, supported by the cluster, further enhance these frameworks.
Supporting the EU Roadmap: LIFESAVER is fully committed to the European Commission’s roadmap to an animal-free regulatory system, developing new indicators and safety assessment approaches to replace animal-based methods.

By aligning with these recommendations, LIFESAVER is helping shape a future where chemical safety assessments are faster, more ethical, and better equipped to protect human health and the environment.

Collaboration and Impact: Leveraging the Green Deal Project Support Office

LIFESAVER isn’t working alone. Through the Green Deal Project Support Office (GD-SO), we’re collaborating with other Green Deal projects to maximize our impact. The GD-SO, active until November 2026, facilitates networking, knowledge exchange, and communication efforts through five working groups, including “Food and Health”—a perfect fit for LIFESAVER’s focus on health-related chemical safety.

This collaboration allows us to share our results, build synergies, and amplify our message. For example, LIFESAVER contributes to the cluster’s broader efforts to advance New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), such as supporting data generation for AOPs and kinetic modeling. Other projects in the cluster, such as PANORAMIX, are advancing EDA for mixture risk assessment. Together, we’re ensuring that the innovations developed by LIFESAVER and our partners reach policymakers, regulators, and the public, driving real change.

Our Commitment: A Cleaner, Safer, and More Ethical Future

As part of the Green Deal Health Cluster, LIFESAVER fully endorses the promotion of NAMs for regulatory use and strongly supports the development of a European roadmap to an animal-free regulatory system. Our work is not just about science—it’s about ethics, sustainability, and protecting future generations.

By replacing animal testing with NAMs, we’re resolving ethical conflicts, reducing costs, and providing more meaningful insights. We’re also aligning with the EU’s zero-pollution vision, ensuring that Europe leads the way in sustainable chemical safety assessments.

Get Involved: Join the Movement for Change

Want to learn more about LIFESAVER’s work and how we’re contributing to a zero-pollution future?

Follow Us: Stay updated on our progress through our website and social media channels.
Collaborate: Join us at workshops, conferences, and GD-SO networking events to explore synergies and share knowledge.
Spread the Word: Share this blog post and help us raise awareness about the importance of animal-free testing for a sustainable future.

Together, we can build a cleaner, safer, and more ethical Europe—one where science and sustainability go hand in hand.

For more insights into how LIFESAVER leverages such innovative research to enhance prenatal safety, visit the LIFESAVER project’s website. Here, you can also find updates on other research outputs and initiatives under the LIFESAVER umbrella, driving forward the frontier of maternal and fetal health safety.