We imagine a world where animal research benefits everybody — not only all humans, but other animals, too — and where the well-being of animal subjects is understood as the most central piece of successful biomedical research.

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Reduction, Refinement, & Replacement
("the 3Rs") are necessary principles for humane animal experimentation.

The 3Rs have defined our thinking, practice, & regulation around laboratory animal well-being for 65 years.

Documents like The Guide have been updated several times during this period, but the 3Rs have remained unchanged.

Beyond3Rs expands upon the 3Rs to push these concepts further.
We draw on modern animal well-being science to pioneer
a paradigm shift in the care and use of research animals.


Embracing Variability

Harmonizing animal and human research, spontaneous disease models, and biomarkers

Housing and Husbandry

Improving enclosures, enrichment, handling, nutrition, and other husbandry practices

Reproducibility and Translation

Experimental design, animal-to-human translation, and "the science of doing science"


Featured Research

Introducing Therioepistemology: the study of how knowledge is gained from animal research

Joseph P Garner, Brianna N Gaskill, Elin M Weber, Jamie Ahloy-Dallaire, Kathleen R Pritchett-Corning (2017), Lab Animal

The scale of the reproducibility and translatability crisis is more widely understood than ever before. Emerging literature has coalesced around a set of recurring themes, which together represent a paradigm shift. At the micro level, this is a shift from asking “what have we controlled for in this model?” to asking “what have we chosen to ignore in this model, and at what cost?” At the macro level, it is a shift from viewing animals as tools, to viewing them as patients equivalent to humans in medical studies. We are witnessing the birth of a new discipline, which we term Therioepistemology. 

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Improving the practicality of using non-aversive handling methods to reduce background stress and anxiety in laboratory mice

Kelly Gouveia, Jane L. Hurst (2019), Scientific Reports

Handling can stimulate stress and anxiety in laboratory animals that negatively impacts welfare and introduces a confounding factor in many areas of research. Picking up mice by the tail is a major source of handling stress that results in strong aversion to the handler; mice familiarised with being picked up in a tunnel or cupped on the open hand show low stress and anxiety, and actively seek interaction with their handlers. Use of tunnel handling during routine cage cleaning and procedures provides a major refinement with little if any cost for familiarisation.

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Systematic variation improves reproducibility of animal experiments

S Helene Richter, Joseph P Garner, Corinna Auer, Joachim Kunert, Hanno Würbel (2010), Nature Methods

Reproducibility is the cornerstone of any scientific method. We have recently shown in the pages of this journal that standardization in mouse experiments may generate spurious results, accounting for poor reproducibility. This is contrary to the traditional assumption that such standardization guarantees reproducibility. Systematic variation of experimental conditions (heterogenization) may attenuate spurious results, thereby avoiding scientific uncertainty and unnecessary duplication of experiments. Here we show that even simple heterogenization may improve reproducibility.

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