The Michael Balls Award is presented by FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) in recognition of Professor Balls’s outstanding dedication to ATLA during his 37 years as Editor-in-Chief.

The annual award is given to the author(s) of the article in the previous year’s volume of ATLA which, in the opinion of the Associate Editors and Editorial Board, is likely to make the most significant contribution to the reduction, refinement and/or replacement of animal experimentation.

The 2020 Award, for the best article published in the 2020 volume of ATLA, has been won by Adrián García-Salvador, Alazne Domínguez-Monedero, Paloma Gómez-Fernández, Amaia García-Bilbao and Felipe Goñi-de-Cerio (from GAIKER Technology Centre, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Basque Country, Spain) and their collaborators Susana Carregal-Romero (from CIC biomaGUNE, BRTA, Basque Country, Spain) and Joaquín Castilla (from CIC Biogune, BRTA, Basque Country, Spain). Their paper, ‘Evaluation of the influence of astrocytes on in vitro blood–brain barrier models’, was published in ATLA 48(4), 184–200; https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0261192920966954

The research group is specialised in the development of in vitro models of different physiological barriers, such as the blood–brain barrier (BBB), pulmonary barrier and intestinal barrier, with a clear orientation toward the development of robust in vitro models according to the Three Rs principles.

Read more in the newest issue of ATLA

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02611929211033513