Report of Workshop on Euthanasia for Zebrafish-A Matter of Welfare and Science.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Kohler A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5706616 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Report of Workshop on Euthanasia for Zebrafish-A Matter of Welfare and Science.
Köhler Almut A Collymore Chereen C Finger-Baier Karin K Geisler Robert R Kaufmann Larissa L Pounder Kieran C KC Schulte-Merker Stefan S Valentim Ana A Varga Zoltan M ZM Weiss Jürgen J Strähle Uwe U
Zebrafish 20171002 6
The increasing importance of zebrafish as a biomedical model organism is reflected by the steadily growing number of publications and laboratories working with this species. Regulatory recommendations for euthanasia as issued in Directive 2010/63/EU are, however, based on experience with fish species used for food production and do not take the small size and specific physiology of zebrafish into account. Consequently, the currently recommended methods of euthanasia in the Directive 2010/63/EU a ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:The European Stroke Organisation held its first European Stroke Science Workshop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (December 15-17, 2011). Stroke experts based in Europe were invited to present and discuss their current research. The scope of the workshop was to review the most recent findings of selected topics in stroke, to exchange ideas, to stimulate new research, and to enhance collaboration between European stroke research groups. Seven scientific sessions were held, each starting with a keynote lecture to review the state of the art of the given topic, followed by 4 or 5 short presentations by experts. They were asked to limit their presentations to 10 slides containing only recent information. The meeting was organized by the executive committee of the European Stroke Organisation (Heinrich Mattle, chairman, Michael Brainin, Angel Chamorro, Werner Hacke, Didier Leys) and supported by the European Stroke Conference (Michael Hennerici). The following sections summarize the content of the workshop.
| S-EPMC4820028 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background: There has been increased concern about the suitability of CO2 as a method for euthanasia of laboratory mice and rats, including the potential discomfort, pain or distress that animals may experience prior to loss of consciousness; time to loss of consciousness; best methods for use of CO2; and the availability of better alternatives. These discussions have been useful in providing new information, but have resulted in significant confusion regarding the acceptability of CO2 for rodent euthanasia. In some cases, researchers and veterinarians have become uncertain as to which techniques to recommend or use for euthanasia of laboratory mice and rats. Methods: The International Association of Colleges of Laboratory Animal Medicine (IACLAM) convened a taskforce to examine the evidence for adverse welfare indicators in laboratory rats and mice undergoing CO2 euthanasia using a SYRCLE-registered systematic review protocol. Of 3,772 papers identified through a database search (PubMed, Web of Science, CAB Direct, Agricola, and grey literature) from 1900 to 2017, 37 studies were identified for detailed review (some including more than one species or age group), including 15 in adult mice, 21 in adult rats, and 5 in neonates of both species. Experiments or reports were excluded if they only assessed parameters other than those directly affecting animal welfare during CO2 induction and/or euthanasia. Results: Study design and outcome measures were highly variable and there was an unclear to high risk of bias in many of the published studies. Changes in the outcome measures evaluated were inconsistent or poorly differentiated. It is likely that repeated exposures to carbon dioxide inhalation are aversive to adult rats and mice, based on avoidance behavior studies; however, this effect is largely indistinguishable from aversion induced by repeated exposures to other inhalant anesthetic gasses. Conclusion: There is insufficient evidence to permit an unbiased assessment of the effect of CO2 inhalation during euthanasia on welfare indicators in laboratory mice and rats. Additional well-designed, unbiased, and adequately powered studies are needed to accurately assess the welfare of laboratory mice and rats undergoing euthanasia via CO2 gas.
| S-EPMC7387666 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Animal welfare science features interdisciplinary and collaborative working across fields, spanning behavioural ecology, psychology, veterinary sciences, economics, and fundamental biology. However, education research is not yet prevalent within the animal welfare literature. In a Web of Science topic search there were 188 papers which specifically discussed or explored how to teach animal welfare from 1978 to 2017. Of these, only 34% (n = 61) specifically focused on instructional design or pedagogical research, and these were predominantly within veterinary education (57%). Despite this, the literature is in broad agreement that animal welfare education is an important topic that should be done well. Within the UK, there were a possible 586 animal-related courses within Universities College Admissions Service database for potential students to choose from, highlighting the significance of robust and considered educational practice. The current gaps identified in the literature were discussion of hidden curriculums outside of veterinary degrees, animal-centered education, the blueprinting of assessment, and authentic assessment. Therefore, this review proposes that animal welfare scientists interested in education consider discipline based educational research (DBER) practices, and engage more fully with the educational research literature. A key component of DBER is the recognition that specialist knowledge needs to be taught by specialists, and so it is important that animal welfare scientists begin to access educational research too.
| S-EPMC6997439 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionHigh impact biomedical research is increasingly conducted by large, transdisciplinary, multisite teams in an increasingly collaborative environment. Thriving in this environment requires robust teamwork skills, which are not acquired automatically in the course of traditional scientific education. Team science skills training does exist, but most is directed at clinical care teams, not research teams, and little is focused on the specific training needs of early-career investigators, whose early team leadership experiences may shape their career trajectories positively or negatively. Our research indicated a need for team science training designed specifically for early-career investigators.MethodsTo address this need, we designed and delivered a 2-day workshop focused on teaching team science skills to early-career investigators. We operationalized team science competencies, sought the advice of team science experts, and performed a needs assessment composed of a survey and a qualitative study. Through these multiple approaches, we identified and grouped training priorities into three broad training areas and developed four robust, hands-on workshop sessions.ResultsAttendees comprised 30 pre- and post-doc fellows (TL1) and early-career faculty (KL2 and K12). We assessed impact with a pre- and post-workshop survey adapted from the Team Skills Scale. Results from the pre- and post-test Wilcoxon signed-rank analysis (n = 25) showed statistically significant improvement in team science skills and confidence. Open-ended responses indicated that the workshop focus was appropriate and well targeted to the trainees' needs.ConclusionsAlthough team science education is still very much in its infancy, these results suggest that training targeted to early-career investigators improves team skills and may foster improved collaboration.
| S-EPMC6799325 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Current standards for husbandry and maintenance of zebrafish and other aquatic species in the laboratory are diverse, and are subject to laboratory performance, engineering, and practice standards (the Guide), institutional interpretation, national animal welfare laws, and cultural differences. Consequently, it is difficult, and probably not advantageous, to establish a single standard in view of the hardy nature of zebrafish and the diversity of research requirements it is used to address. Based on their natural habitat, zebrafish can thrive in a variety of environmental conditions, which is a specific advantage for working with this laboratory organism. However, it also makes reporting and reproducibility difficult, because variations in the husbandry and environmental conditions, including the environmental conditions before and during experiments, are often underreported in the scientific literature. This lack of consistency presents a potential problem for research reproducibility. To begin addressing this emerging scientific gap, the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP), Division of Construction and Instruments (DCI), hosted a workshop in late 2017, entitled "Zebrafish and Other Aquatic Models: Reporting of Environmental Husbandry Conditions for Rigorous Experiments and Reproducible Results," that was attended by ∼60 participants. The objectives of the workshop were to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders-researchers, facility managers, veterinarians, journal editors, commercial vendors, and others to (1) review current husbandry and environmental management practices for the care of zebrafish and other aquatic organisms in the laboratory and to (2) propose a process for the development of a minimal set of environmental parameters that should be reported in publications to ensure rigor and robustness of experiments and reproducible outcomes. The participants also discussed how these recommendations, as an initial step, might be collected, disseminated, implemented, and improved upon after future iteration.
| S-EPMC7645980 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The societal challenges posed by a growing human population and climate change necessitate technical advances in plant science. Plant research makes vital contributions to society by advancing technologies that improve agricultural food production, biological energy capture and conversion, and human health. However, the plant biology community lacks a comprehensive understanding of molecular machinery, including their locations within cells, distributions and variations among different cell types, and real-time dynamics. Fortunately, rapid advances in molecular methods, imaging, proteomics, and metabolomics made in the last decade afford unprecedented opportunities to develop a molecular-level map of plant cells with high temporal and spatial resolution. The Plant Cell Atlas (PCA) initiative aims to generate a resource that will provide fresh insight into poorly understood aspects of plant cell structure and organization and enable the discovery of new cellular compartments and features. The PCA will be a community resource (www.plantcellatlas.org/) that describes the state of various plant cell types and integrates high-resolution spatio-temporal information of nucleic acids, proteins, and metabolites within plant cells. This first PCA initiative workshop convened scientists passionate about developing a comprehensive PCA to brainstorm about the state of the field, recent advances, the development of tools, and the future directions of this initiative. The workshop featured invited talks to share initial data, along with broader ideas for the PCA. Additionally, breakout sessions were organized around topics including the conceptual goals of the PCA, technical challenges, and community wants and needs. These activities connected scientists with diverse expertise and sparked important discussions about how to leverage and extend leading-edge technologies and develop new techniques. A major outcome of the workshop was that the community wishes to redefine concepts of plant cell types and tissues quantitatively. A long-term goal is to delineate all molecules within the cell at high spatio-temporal resolution, obtain information about interacting molecular networks, and identify the contribution of these networks to development of the organism as a whole. As a first step, we wish to create comprehensive cellular and subcellular biomolecular maps of transcripts, proteins, and metabolites, track the dynamic interactions of these molecules intra- and intercellularly, discern complete states and transitions of specialized cell types, and integrate these disparate data points to generate testable models of cellular function. Ultimately, the PCA initiative will have a substantial positive impact by empowering a broad, diverse group of scientists to forge exciting paths in the field of plant science, facilitating connections with interested stakeholders beyond the scientific community, and enabling new agricultural technologies for a sustainable future.
| S-EPMC7557347 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The aim of this study is to examine the association of welfare state policies and the gendered organisation of intergenerational support (instrumental help and personal care) to older parents. The study distinguishes between support to older parents provided at least weekly, i.e. time-intensive and often burdening support, and supplemental sporadic support. Three policy instruments were expected to be associated with daughters' and sons' support or gender inequality in intergenerational support respectively: (1) professional social services, (2) cash-for-care payments and (3) legal obligations to provide or co-finance care for parents. The analyses based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe showed that daughters provided somewhat more sporadic and much more intensive support than sons throughout Europe. While about half of all children who sporadically supported a parent were men, this applied to only one out of four children who provided intensive support. Logistic multilevel models revealed that legal obligations were positively associated with daughters' likelihood of giving intensive support to parents but did not affect the likelihood of sons doing so. Legal obligations thus stimulate support in a gender-specific way. Both legal obligations and cash-for-care schemes were also accompanied by a more unequal distribution of involvement in intensive support at the expense of women. Social services, in contrast, were linked to a lower involvement of daughters in intensive support. In sum, the results suggest that welfare states can both preserve or reduce gender inequality in intergenerational support depending on specific arrangements.
| S-EPMC5547314 | biostudies-other
Project description:Alport syndrome (AS) is a genetic disease characterized by haematuric glomerulopathy variably associated with hearing loss and anterior lenticonus. It is caused by mutations in the COL4A3, COL4A4 or COL4A5 genes encoding the α3α4α5(IV) collagen heterotrimer. AS is rare, but it accounts for >1% of patients receiving renal replacement therapy. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition slows, but does not stop, the progression to renal failure; therefore, there is an urgent requirement to expand and intensify research towards discovering new therapeutic targets and new therapies. The 2015 International Workshop on Alport Syndrome targeted unmet needs in basic science, genetics and diagnosis, clinical research and current clinical care. In three intensive days, more than 100 international experts including physicians, geneticists, researchers from academia and industry, and patient representatives from all over the world participated in panel discussions and breakout groups. This report summarizes the most important priority areas including (i) understanding the crucial role of podocyte protection and regeneration, (ii) targeting mutations by new molecular techniques for new animal models and potential gene therapy, (iii) creating optimal interaction between nephrologists and geneticists for early diagnosis, (iv) establishing standards for mutation screening and databases, (v) improving widespread accessibility to current standards of clinical care, (vi) improving collaboration with the pharmaceutical/biotech industry to investigate new therapies, (vii) research in hearing loss as a huge unmet need in Alport patients and (viii) the need to evaluate the risk and benefit of novel (including 'repurposing') therapies on an international basis.
| S-EPMC5837236 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United States with a 5-year survival rate of less than 10%. The Division of Cancer Prevention of the National Cancer Institute sponsored the Pancreatic Cancer Chemoprevention Translational Workshop on September 10 to 11, 2015. The goal of the workshop was to obtain information regarding the current state of the science and future scientific areas that should be prioritized for pancreatic cancer prevention research, including early detection and intervention for high-risk precancerous lesions. The workshop addressed the molecular/genetic landscape of pancreatic cancer and precursor lesions, high-risk populations and criteria to identify a high-risk population for potential chemoprevention trials, identification of chemopreventative/immunopreventative agents, and use of potential biomarkers and imaging for assessing short-term efficacy of a preventative agent. The field of chemoprevention for pancreatic cancer is emerging, and this workshop was organized to begin to address these important issues and promote multi-institutional efforts in this area. The meeting participants recommended the development of an National Cancer Institute working group to coordinate efforts, provide a framework, and identify opportunities for chemoprevention of pancreatic cancer.
| S-EPMC4988336 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A workshop at the National Cancer Institute on May 2, 2016, considered the current state of imaging in assessment of immunotherapy. Immunotherapy has shown some remarkable and prolonged responses in the treatment of tumors. However, responses are variable and frequently delayed, complicating the evaluation of new immunotherapy agents and customizing treatment for individual patients. Early anatomic imaging may show that a tumor has increased in size, but this could represent pseudoprogression. On the basis of imaging, clinicians must decide if they should stop, pause, or continue treatment. Other imaging technologies and approaches are being developed to improve the measurement of response in patients receiving immunotherapy. Imaging methods that are being evaluated include radiomic methods using CT, MRI, and 18F-FDG PET, as well as new radiolabeled small molecules, antibodies, and antibody fragments to image the tumor microenvironment, immune status, and changes over the course of therapy. Current studies of immunotherapy can take advantage of these available imaging options to explore and validate their use. Collection of CT, PET, and MR images along with outcomes from trials is critical to develop improved methods of assessment.
| S-EPMC5868498 | biostudies-literature