New Paper: Improving Translational Relevance in Preclinical Psychopharmacology (iTRIPP)

On 25 February 2021, the Psychiatry Consortium, British Pharmacological Society and Laboratory Animal Sciences Association co-hosted a series of seminars and workshops to bring together researchers from a variety of backgrounds and interests to address the translational validity and future of preclinical models in psychiatric drug discovery.

Following the workshop, Medicines Discovery Catapult convened a working group of 14 leading global experts with experience in preclinical research and people with lived experience of mental health challenges to create guiding principles for the research community to use when working with animal models of psychiatric conditions.

A first draft of the guiding principles was presented to the wider research community at a workshop at the 2022 British Association for Psychopharmacology annual conference. Over thirty attendees provided input into the guidelines, which were re-drafted with the community input and submitted as a paper to the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

This paper has the potential to become a key guidance document for the global research community (researchers, journal editors, grant funders and regulators) to implement when using animal models of psychiatric conditions