Alternatives in research

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Alternatives in research

• June Fanning MVB
• Central Veterinary Research Laboratory
• Department of Agriculture Food

2
Reasons for alternatives

• Regulatory / Legal
• Scientific
• Ethical
• Ecomonic
• Practical
• Social

3
Alternatives 3Rs
4
Reduction

• Quality literature search
• Appropriate statistical design
• Pilot studies
• Sharing animals, tissues, or organs
• New methods in testing

5
Refinement

• Knowledge of species
• physiology and normal and abnormal behavior
• Anaesthetics and analgesics
• Competence in restraint, handling, blood
  collection
• Increase sensitivity of monitoring devices,
  chemical assays and tests

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Replacement

• Absolute replacement no animal involvement
• Endoparasites, microorganisms, plants
• Computer automated structure evaluation systems
• Human tissue culture

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Relative Replacement
Some animal involvement
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What are the alternatives?

• Improved use of information
• Mathemathics and Computers
• Predictions Modelling
• Physico-chemical methods/properties
• Predictions for preliminary screening
• Lower organisms
• Early developmental stages
• Culture systems
• Human tissues and volunteers

9
In Vitro studies Advantages and Disadvantages

• Advantages
• Cost time effective information
• Reliable reproducible
• Human cells increase relevance
• Permit studies not possible in animals

• Disadvantages
• Lack multisystemic integration
• Lack effects of other systems
• Limited models
• Difficult to relate in vitro to in vivo

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Searching for alternatives

• Early planning
• Experimental design
• The 3 Rs
• Statistical analysis
• Literature searches
• General and Subject-specific databases
• Medline, Biosis, Embase, Agricola
• Search more than one lack of overlap
• Conceptual search strategy keywords increase
  relevance

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Things to consider

• Other or non-animal models
• Objectives and endpoints
• Drugs compounds
• Potential alternatives
• Modifications A little goes a long way!
• Database selection

12
Bad search techniques

• Only 1 database searched.
• Terms only for painful aspects.
• The term alternative used alone with no other
  alternative terms.
• Keywords listed irrelevant to protocol.
• Keywords and concepts linked incorrectly
• e.g. wrong boolean operators
• Search covers inadequate time period (5-10 yrs).

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Where do I look?
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Internet resources

• Google Scholar
• http//scholar.google.com
• Scirus
• FRAME
• Altweb
• UCDavis
• http//www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/AnimalAlternatives/
  main.htm

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FRAME

• www.frame.org.uk

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Internet Resourses continued

• Altweb
• www.altweb.jhsph.edu
• Very thorough site
• Good search engine
• www.altwebsearch.org
• Includes tips on searching and terms to use

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Altweb
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Animal Welfare Information Center

• http//www.nal.usda.gov/awic/

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Databases

• Biological Biomedical
• Pharmaceuticals
• Technological
• Educational
• Norina - http//oslovet.veths.no/NORINA

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Search databases

• Medline
• Agricola
• Varied source of information related to
  agricultural animal welfare issues
• Biosis
• Comp. biological biomedical database
• Limit search to broad area
• Embase
• 10-30 overlap with Medline
• Drug development European literature

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Medline/PubMed

• www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

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Agricola
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SCIrUS

• http//www.scirus.com/

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INVITTOX

• http//embryo.ib.amwaw.edu.pl/invittox/

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Internet Resources continued

• Pub Crawler
• Configure your own search
• Go to pub!
• www.pubcrawler.ie

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Sources of Information

• Dr. Hadwen Trust for Humane Research
• http//www.drhadwentrust.f2s.com/
• The Humane Research Trust
• UFAW
• www.ufaw.org.uk/
• Journals
• ATLA, In vitro toxiclology, Laboratory Animals,
  Animal Welfare and Toxicology in vitro

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European Centre for the Validation of Alternative
Methods (ECVAM)

• Reports
• Recommendations

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How to look

• Search in 2 phases
• Analyze the protocol to determine where
  alternatives might be used and for terminology.
• Decide where to go for the information.
• Databases
• Websites
• Link terminology appropriately for best search
  results.
• Evaluate the search results

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Using the web

• Choose Your Words Wisely
• Improve your search results by being specific.
• International Spellings
• behavior, behaviour tumor, tumour estrogen,
  oestrogen, anaesthesia, anesthesia, anasthesia
• Bookmark Search Results
• When you create a Web search that gives good
  results, use browser's standard functions for
  bookmarking the URL.
• Know Where to Look

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• Quotation marks
• Enclose multiword phrase in quotation marks ?
  search engine lists only sites that contain words
  in that exact order.
• Eg. animal welfare
• Plus and minus signs directly in front of a word
  
• ? word/phrase must appear in the search results
• tail-biting pigs
• - ? word/phrase shouldnt be included in search
  result
• Pigs -gilts

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Alternative terms Reduce Refine

• analgesic or painkiller or anodyne
• technique or method or procedure
• anesthetic or anasthetic or anaesthetic
• monitor or evaluate or supervise
• restrain or immobilize or restrict
• positive reinforcement or animal training
• housing or facility or caging
• Note Most search terms are obtained from the
  protocol and area of study.

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Alternative terms - Replace

• artificial or vitro or culture
• tissue or cell or organ
• insect or arachnid or invertebrate
• fish or mollusc or cephalopod
• simulation or digital image or interactive
• mannequin or manikin or model
• Animal Use Alternatives Thesaurus
• http//www.nal.usda.gov/awic/alternatives/altfact.
  htm

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Other useful resources

• Mailing lists
• Vole
• Newsgroups
• IACUC
• Discussion forums
• Compmed
• NVS