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Dear Colleagues,

Another major shift has arrived. Last week, the NIH announced it will no longer fund new proposals relying exclusively on animal models and will require all future grants to integrate Non-Animal Models (NAMs)—such as organoids, organ-on-chip, computational modeling, and AI—into their research plans.

This move aligns NIH’s April 2025 call for prioritization of human models and with the US FDA’s September 2023 Modernization Act and signals a pivotal change in biomedical research—favoring human-relevant, translational science over outdated animal models. 

But this shift is neither sudden, nor unexpected.

On June 4th 2013, Elias Zerhouni, a former Director of the NIH said: “We have moved away from studying human disease in humans” . He continued to say: “The problem is that it hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem.” In its strategic plan for 2016 through 2020, NIH openly acknowledged that, “Animal models often fail to provide good ways to mimic disease or predict how drugs will work in humans.” Read more at: here and here. (An entire post on "worst animal models" is here).

UC San Diego is ready to embrace this moment—not with anxiety, but enthusiasm and pride. In an "Organoids Convening" workshop hosted earlier this year by Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Corrine Peek-Asa, we watched several leaders on this campus who are furthering the development and use of NAMs in different organ/tissue domains.    

At UC San Diego HUMANOID, we have been quietly preparing for this very moment—by pioneering a new class of biologically faithful disease avatars: trademarked HUMANOID™ systems. Thanks to your partnership and dedication, we now have the infrastructure, expertise, and momentum to lead this transformation. As your one-stop hub for human 3D modeling solutions, we are here to help you pivot with confidence—anchored in the collaborative spirit that defines our campus and propels discovery forward.

With deep gratitude and belief in our collective future,

The UC San Diego HUMANOID Team

HUMANOID^TM systems—miniature, precision-engineered models built by humans, from humans, for humans—don’t just replicate disease—they help us understand it, treat it, and ultimately, prevent it. Acting as a living biobank, HUMANOID empowers investigators to explore pathogenesis and therapeutic response across a range of human diseases using patient-derived organoids co-cultured with primary cells. 

🔧 What We’re Proudly Offering Already through the Institute of Network Medicine and its Integrated Services:

* A rich patient-derived organoid biobank and precision engineered disease models— accessible via HUMANOID Center of Research Excellence [Check it out here]. HUMANOID™ operates by a clearly defined ethos rooted in the principles of disruption through innovation, open science and collective progress. We don’t play by the rules; we make them. Our signature program is BIODESIGN, embodies this spirit, modeling disease through four core principles [Read more here "How are HUMANOID systems created?"]. 

* Advanced imaging, proteomics, phosphoproteomics, metabolomics & lipidomics platforms — available either through click-collaborations or through integrated services via the Institute for Genomic Medicine Core, Histology Core services through the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, the Center for Epigenomics, the Biomolecular & Proteomics Mass Spectrometry Facility, and flow cytometry, LC/MS, immunocytochemistry and cellular bioenergetic assessments on our 3D human models through our Agilent Center of Excellence.

* Computational biology, AI modeling, and high-throughput assays — supported by the Center for Precision Computational Systems Network (PreCSN).

* Core facilities entrenched in rigorous protocols and reproducibility — state-of-the-art instrumentation and training offered through the Agilent Center of Excellence.

With deep expertise in foundational organoid biology and translational medicine, and the ability to tap into the cutting-edge technologies pioneered by others on this campus (gene editing, single-cell multi-omics, imaging, and machine learning), HUMANOID is uniquely positioned to decode complex disease mechanisms at scale.

Finally, UC San Diego Institute for Network Medicine offers the framework and infrastructure that is designed to foster interdisciplinary agility across any such comprehensive, end-to-end research pipeline. For example, several of our signature programs begin with mathematical inference of disease-invariant features (Center for PreCSN), advance through hypothesis testing in fully human, multicellular 3D models (HUMANOID™), enhance experimental precision and reproducibility across biological scales (Agilent Center of Excellence) and culminate in the in silico modeling of emergent properties (ConCISE).

Thus, we are not merely adapting—we are pioneering.  

HUMANOID™ is dedicated to the mission of making drug discovery faster, cheaper, and more precise. Like most important things that are definitely not a joke, HUMANOID opened its doors on April Fool's day in 2019 (because, why not start something serious with a wink!). Since then, we have grown because you have helped us. We are grateful to our patients, their caregivers, the clinicians and physician-scientists, the clinical coordinators, and an entire team that provides logistical support to this mission.

Ready to see how? Check out the answers to the most frequently asked questions [FAQs] 

So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with the UC San Diego HUMANOID™ Center today and let’s redefine the future of drug discovery together! 🚀

Stay curious, stay innovative, and let's create a healthier world! 🌍