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Blog Post
13 / 11 / 2023
FAL alumni: case study
26/07/2021 | Written by FRAME
This year, the world-renowned FRAME Alternatives Laboratory (FAL) celebrates its 30-year anniversary. Funded by an annual grant made by FRAME to support its work, the FAL is based at the University of Nottingham Medical School and aims to produce human-based research systems for medical research that are better and more relevant to humans than current animal models.
In the final instalment of a series of blogs focused on the FAL, we describe how alumni Dr Carol Treasure went from PhD student in the FAL to co-founder and CEO of XCellR8, an animal-free, in vitro testing lab.
Dr Carol Treasure completed her PhD at the FAL in 1999, following the completion of her Physiology & Pharmacology degree at the University of Sheffield. Carol was particularly interested in the work of the FAL as she had witnessed animal testing and knew there had to be better way – not just ethically, but scientifically too.
Following her time at FRAME, Carol’s academic career involved the development of reconstructed human skin models for non-animal testing, after which she worked in Portland, Oregon for Cascade Biologics, where she concentrated on providing human cell culture systems to scientists all over the world.
Today, Carol is the co-founder and CEO of XCellR8, a specialist animal-free contract testing laboratory, and is passionate about the vision of creating a more ethical testing industry, without animal testing and animal components. Carol’s team is focused on finding replacements for animal tests for the cosmetics, household products and chemical industries, and works with a number of beauty brands, including Lush and The Body Shop.
In 2020, Carol joined FRAME’s Board of Trustees to provide strategic direction and governance.