As part of a series of website blog interviews at Radboud University Medical Center, its animal research facility has opened its doors to answer questions on animal welfare and their use in research.
Otto Boerman, director of the facility, took the interviewer on a tour, speaking with lab staff and visiting the Translational Neuroscience Unit (an EARA member) – where research with mice and rats is conducted on cognition, emotion, social behaviour, motor-related function, and sensory function.
Asked about the future of animals in research, Otto observed that the number used is becoming fewer thanks to continuing scientific innovation.
He said: “We can answer more and more questions without the use of laboratory animals and we are able to extract more data from a single animal, through the use of advanced imaging techniques, which can help us to answer more questions.”
As a member of the Dutch Transparency Agreement, Radboud is also committed to openness on animal research and conducts around 100 lab tours every year, both for individual journalists and for larger groups of people, including a visit last year by primary school children.