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Artificial intelligence (AI) is probably familiar to everyone by now. It has already found its way into many areas, such as finance, education, medicine and many other fields. Due to its ability to process and analyse large and complex amounts of data, it would also be well suited for use in the life sciences. For example, the use of AI would facilitate and perhaps even improve the development of medical issues, from diagnosis to therapy, the implementation of studies in drug discovery, toxicology or genetics.

The primary objective of the EU-wide Animal Experiments Directive (Directive 2010/63/EU), which is implemented in Austria by the Animal Experiments Act 2012 (TVG 2012), is to ensure maximum animal welfare by guaranteeing the highest possible level of protection and to minimize "pain, suffering or distress".

In the breeding of laboratory animals, a large number of so-called surplus animals are inevitably produced, which cannot be used in research. In science, the aim is to achieve reproducibility of experiments, which can only be guaranteed if the animals used are as identical as possible and have one and the same genetic background, the same age and even the same sex. All others are eliminated.

Ensuring the "welfare of animals" as a "value of the Union" is the primary objective of the European Directive 2010/63/EU, which was implemented in Austria by the Animal Experiments Act 2012 (TVG 2012).

This regulates that "death as an endpoint of a procedure is to be avoided as far as possible" as well as "to be replaced by early and as painless endpoints as possible".

Training, the key to success. Read here why animal-friendly handling improves your research quality and how laboratory rodent training works.

Enrichment is considered an essential factor in providing refinement and animal welfare in laboratory animal husbandry. It is relatively easy to provide for animal welfare through various measures, which have a positive effect on behavior, physiology and even the brain structure of laboratory animals.

Clicker training works not only with dogs, but also excellently with rodents, including laboratory rodents. The training leads to stress reduction and thus makes a good contribution in refinement.

Life-long learning has become an integral part of today's professional world. Thanks to constant advances in science and technology, everyone is required to keep up to date with the latest developments through continuous professional development. While Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is commonplace in many medical and scientific disciplines, there is still a need to catch up, especially in the laboratory animal sector. This is because both the quality of research and animal welfare would benefit from up to date knowledge and skills. Apart from this, it is also entirely in the spirit of the EU-wide legal standard (Directive 2010/63/EU) to ensure that animal experiments are always carried out according to the latest knowledge in order to reduce animal suffering to an absolute minimum.

Animal-friendly handling is an important measure to ensure refinement in animal experiments. On the one hand, this strengthens the human-animal relationship Animal-friendly handling is an important measure to ensure refinement in animal experiments. On the one hand, it strengthens the human-animal relationship. Handling becomes more relaxed for both, less stress and fear are felt and the risk of injury is also significantly reduced.

Young et al. show in a study how much value is placed on refinement methods in animal testing laboratories. Refined handling should not be an option but a standard in animal handling. The advantages are visible in daily handling and in various investigations. Refined handling includes methods such as tunnel handling (picking up with a tunnel) and cup handling (picking up in a palm shaped into a bowl).

Originally kept for ornamental purposes only, the zebrafish now plays an important role in research. Whether embryo, larva or fish - for all developmental stages of the Danio rerio exists a variety of scientific applications.

The so-called Automated Home-Cage Monitoring Systems (AHCM) are a very good example of improved animal welfare and increased quality in research with and on animals.

In accordance with the principle of reduction, one of the 3Rs in animal research, it is essential to ensure that as few animals as possible are used for research purposes. There are many ways to achieve this goal. For example, statistical methods and breeding programs can be used to calculate in advance exactly how many animals are needed to study certain parameters. This also avoids the breeding of surplus animals, i.e. animals that cannot be used in the experiment. The use of animals of both sexes in the experiment also contributes to reduction.

Reduction means the maximum possible decrease in the number of animals used in an animal experiment. However, it is essential that the quality and information content of the research results are not negatively affected. There are various measures for the successful implementation of reduction, including PREPARE and ARRIVE guidelines from Norecopa.

Unfortunately, many multigroup animal experiments are still planned and analysed using two-sample t-tests, which is inefficient and needs more animals than appropriate planning and analysis with ANOVA. One reason for this unfortunate situation may be a lack of tools for sample size calculation for ANOVA-based multiplicity-corrected post-hoc pairwise comparisons, as for this task no simple formulae are available. The GINGER (General Simulation-Interpolation Tool for Designing Multigroup Experiments) was developed to close this gap. It is based on an efficiently designed simulation complemented by interpolations and is entirely written in fully reproducible and open R shiny code. Here we present computational details, basic and extended functions of GINGER and exemplify its application with four typical examples.

Univ. Prof. Dr. Georg Heinze
Medical University of Vienna, Center for Medical Data Science, Institute of Clinical Biometrics
https://www.meduniwien.ac.at/researcher/Georg_Heinze

Animal research is an essential tool for biomedical and agricultural innovation, but it also raises ethical and practical concerns. One of the major challenges is to reduce the number of animals that are bred but not used in research, either because they do not carry the desired genetic traits or because they are surplus to the experimental needs. These animals represent a waste of resources, a potential source of animal suffering, and bring about a negative impact on public perception of animal research. Therefore, it is important to develop and implement breeding strategies that optimize theanimal use and minimize the generation of surplus animals. In this lecture, the current state of the art in breeding management is presented. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different breeding schemes, of breeding objectives, and calculate the required breeders taking into account stochastic processes.

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Buch
University of Zurich, Institute for Laboratory Animal Science
https://www.med.uzh.ch/de/UeberdieFakultaet/fakultaetsmitglieder/buchthorsten.html