The University is currently using 166,755 animal specimens for scientific research and teaching materials, according to University data. Each and every one of those cases is reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, a little known board that wields considerable power.
The vast majority of animals used at the University are included in the University’s long-running zebrafish research program, accounting for nearly 164,000 of the total research specimens.
Cold-blooded vertebrates such as zebrafish make up 99.7 percent of the University’s research, and the other 0.3 percent of animal research is done with warm-blooded animals such as mice, rats, owls, rabbits and two primates.
IACUC is the sole committee at the University responsible for either approving or denying any requests made for animal use in faculty research or classroom use.
“I think it’s just an excellent idea, both for insurance or the quality of animal care from the scientific research point of view, and out of a general concern for the well-being of animals,” said IACUC Chair Will Davie. “The committee monitors both of those quite intensely.”
IACUC Director Monte Matthews said researchers must undergo a lengthy process of application to get approval for animal use in their work.
Researchers first submit an application to the committee, which is then pre-reviewed by Davie, Matthews and a committee veterinarian. If researchers are submitting their first application, they must also undergo a training session with IACUC before they submit. After the pre-review, the application is sent back to researchers with questions and revisions for them to consider before submitting a second time.
“Most of the questions are dealt with even before the application gets to the committee members,” Matthews said.
After the second submission of the application is made, the full 11-member committee convenes and deliberates before making a final decision on the proposed project.
Matthews said a majority must be present for the meeting to be valid, and a majority vote from those present is required for approval. Matthews said very few cases brought to the committee have any dissent at all.
“I would say 90 percent of the cases, if not more, we have unanimous approval,” he said.
Matthews said the reason for the high approval rate is likely that most scientists know the federal requirements for animal treatment going into the application process.
“People are starting now to grow up with those (regulations), so it’s becoming more a part of their training,” Matthews said. “I think the training now is a lot better than it used to be.”
Davie said he was not expecting so many of the cases, or protocols, to meet his approval when he first joined IACUC in 1988.
“I had read about research going on in the ’50s, for example, that I would never approve of, and that’s what I expected to see,” Davie said. “Times have changed. It just hasn’t been that way.”
IACUC currently has about 70 active protocols, Matthews said.
The committee is also under close scrutiny from both the United States Department of Agriculture and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. Matthews said the committee and all of the University’s research facilities are subject to one unannounced inspection from the USDA each year, and one more intense inspection from AAALAC that is notified.
“That’s kind of the gold standard for institutions,” Matthews said. “It goes beyond what the federal regulations require. They go through your entire program with a fine-tooth comb.”
The University must be reviewed and re-approved every three years to remain accredited by AAALAC.
The University is currently listed as one of the organization’s accredited institutions, according to the AAALAC Web site.
Even with the federal regulations the University’s facilities must adhere to, there are still some objections to the basic premise of animal testing.
Lindsay Riddell, director of Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the University should seek alternative methods of research that don’t involve the use of animals.
“I just feel that anyone that uses animals for testing doesn’t empathize with them,” Riddell said.
Riddell said the research departments should try to find better technological methods to prevent animals from being “treated in a way that is not intended by nature.”
Matthews said one of the basic requirements going into the animal research application is the use of an anesthetic to relieve any pain or distress that may be caused to an animal subject during an experiment.
Matthews said the committee will continue to maintain its standards for animal care in the future.
“We realize that the use of animals is not a right, it’s a privilege,” he said.
The main research performed with zebrafish, which received two federal grants last week totaling more than $15 million, involves the biological manipulation and study of the animals because of their similarity in organ development to humans. The University was also the first institution to clone a vertebrate when former professor George Streisinger cloned a zebrafish in 1970.
The use of vertebrate animals involves, among other things, behavioral and auditory research with owls and behavioral research of mice and rats. With the two monkeys, broader behavioral research is being done in conjunction with psychological studies involving human subjects, Matthews said.
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