Going Beyond3Rs involves these vital, but often overlooked, components of humane animal research:
Featured Research
Stanford is at the forefront of laboratory animal well-being research, which is a vibrant and growing field across the country and around the world. Here, we showcase current work from Stanford researchers and others finding innovative solutions to improve animal care and scientific practice.
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 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, therioepistemology is a shift from viewing animals as tools, to viewing them as patients equivalent to humans in medical studies.
Non-aversive handling methods 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 cost for familiarisation.
Power to the People: Power, Negative Results and Sample Size
Brianna N Gaskill, Joseph P Garner (2020), JAALAS
The practical application of statistical power is becoming an increasingly important part of experimental design, data analysis, and reporting. Power is essential to estimating sample size as part of planning studies and obtaining ethical approval for them. Furthermore, power is essential for publishing and interpreting negative results. In this manuscript, we review what power is, how it can be calculated, and reporting recommendations if a null result is found. We suggest experimental designs to increase power with easy sample size calculations.
Research Catalog
The discipline of Therioepistemology – the study of how knowledge is gained from animal research – encompasses decades of literature and continues to be a rapidly growing field. Beyond3Rs catalogs some of this work as a resource for animal biologists, caretakers, and biomedical scientists. Explore our research catalog for examples of key studies in laboratory animal science, from Stanford and beyond.
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If you wrote or know of a publication that you think we should add to this catalog, email us at beyond3Rs@stanford.edu!