Leaving a legacy of compassion and change.

1. Achieved a complete ban on animal dissection (vivisection) in life sciences education in 2012, following our initiation with the then Chairman of UGC Prof. Thorat and a continuous, unrelenting dialogue with the UGC from 2006 to 2012 — thereby saving over 18 million animal lives every year.
2. Organized India’s First Congress on Alternatives to the Use of Animals in Education, Research & Testing (2007) at Sri Ramachandra Medical College, Chennai, featuring global experts from the UK, USA and EU.
3. Established the Mahatma Gandhi Doerenkamp Center for Alternatives (MGDC) on a grant of 500,000 Euro from the Doerenkamp Foundation, Switzerland, at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli, in 2009. It is Asia’s first and only dedicated centre for promoting non-animal methods. Since 2017, MGDC functions as the National Centre for Alternatives to Animals in Experimentation (NCAAE) under the UGC.
4. As a member of CPCSEA, mooted the idea and prepared two key national policies — one of its kind in the world, both now part of the CPCSEA Compendium:
   • Ethical use of equines in immunological production (including anti-snake venom serum).
   • Use, reuse and rehabilitation of dogs in toxicity testing and drug development.
5. Partnered with IBM Watson Research Laboratory (New York) under their Science for Social Good program to develop the D.O.N.T. AI model (Dogs Are Not for Testing) to predict toxicology outcomes without animal testing. The model was published in the coveted scientific journal NATURE (2023).
6. Mooted the idea and in partnership with Cruelty Free International...(UK), published a scientific paper using fMRI evidence proving that dogs are as sentient as a two-year-old human child, in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2015.
7. The Sound of Silence (S.O.S) — a signature campaign was launched at the TechFest 2017 at IIT Mumbai with actor and animal lover Gul Panag in the presence of more than 2000 IITians from across India — to expose and bring attention to the needless suffering, the pain and unheard cries endured by thousands of beagles in silence across the world when used in drug development and agrochemical testing.
8. Organized two Round Table conferences in India on the use of dogs in testing — the first at the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (ICAR), Hyderabad, on 12 October 2017, and the second at The Westin, Chennai, on 17 May 2018. Nine of the twelve dog-using laboratories in India participated, alongside the Drug Controller General of India, the Indian Pharmacopeia Commission, CPCSEA, ICMR, IVRI and animal welfare organizations.
9. In recognition of her work in promoting the Gandhian philosophy of Ahimsa, Dr. Shiranee Pereira received the Mahaveer Award for the Promotion of Ahimsa/Non-Violence from the Vice President of India in 2018, among several other national and international awards for the social change she has brought about over thirty plus years dedicated to the welfare of animals. To know more, visit shiraneepereira.com.

What the round tables resolved

At the first round table, participants resolved that they agree ‘the dog is a deeply sentient being and recognize an urgent need to chart out a roadmap to replace the use of dogs in animal testing’. At the second, they deliberated on a gamut of non-animal methods and resolved that they ‘see a promising future with computational toxicology as a stand alone or in combination with multiple-organ-on-chip as alternatives that could bridge the gap between rodent and clinical trials — thereby replacing the dog as the non-rodent species in regulatory testing’.