Human Health, Human Science: How the Physicians Committee Is Improving Public Health Through Smarter Research

Over the past year, US agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have embraced human-based research methods that more accurately reflect human biology than animal experiments. The Physicians Committee plays a vital role in driving this progress forward—through its advocacy, science policy, and training programs focused on the adoption of human-based, nonanimal research methods—transforming the way science is conducted, making it more successful, accurate, and responsive to real-world health needs.

Through specialized training programs, workshops, and awards, the Physicians Committee is helping build a workforce skilled in cutting-edge approaches involving human subjects, tissue-chip technology, 3D bioprinting, and advanced computational methods. By empowering researchers with the knowledge and resources to implement these approaches, the Physicians Committee is accelerating the shift toward more predictive, human-based science. We are working for a research ecosystem that puts people and public health first.

To spotlight National Public Health Week, here are a few ways the Physicians Committee is elevating human-based research to advance public health. 

Animals often fail to accurately predict human responses due to inherent and insurmountable biological differences. This discrepancy can lead to ineffective or harmful treatments reaching clinical trials, posing risks to patients and resulting in significant financial losses, the loss of safe and effective new therapies due to harmful effects in animals, and failures to correctly understand human diseases. In contrast, nonanimal approaches utilize human cells, tissues, and data to replicate critical aspects of human biology and disease, thereby avoiding species-specific translational barriers and more accurately modeling diverse human populations. These methods are already widely employed in disease research, and to reliably develop and test new therapies, effectively replacing the use of animals in many contexts, thereby expediting the research process and bringing effective treatments to patients more swiftly. 

The Physicians Committee’s policy advocacy has led to significant advancements in the acceptance and implementation of nonanimal testing methods, including at the NIH, Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency. For instance, the team’s efforts contributed to policy changes that now allow the use of nonanimal approaches in endotoxin testing—a test performed on every batch of injectable drugs, vaccines, and implanted medical devices to safeguard against harmful toxins called endotoxins—a development eagerly anticipated by many companies. This shift improves scientific accuracy and protects wildlife, such as horseshoe crabs, whose blood was otherwise used in endotoxin testing.

The Physicians Committee is creating opportunities to help human-based research thrive, and those efforts are evidenced by the significant policy changes the federal government has made throughout the last year. When science reflects the complexity, variability, and biology of real people, it becomes a more powerful tool for improving lives. By connecting science to policy, and policy to public health outcomes, the Physicians Committee is showing that the path to better health runs through better science—and that begins with putting humans at the center.