At the University of Washington, we champion the principles of the 3Rs in our work. The 3Rs are: Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement.
Replacement: replacement of an animal model with a model that does not use animals.
Ex: rodent health monitoring done by PCR, human cell-based microphysiological systems evaluating organ metabolism/toxicity (‘organs on a chip’), in silico systems to provide training and modeling, computer modeling.
Reduction: reducing (or optimizing) the number of animals used to address a scientific question.
Ex: animal cell-based microphysiological systems, ensuring proper experimental design and statistical analysis to use the minimum number of animals necessary, utilization of controls for more than one treatment group, data sharing, tissue sharing.
Refinement: refining our interactions with the animals to decrease pain and distress associated with the use of animals in research.
Ex: analgesic administration, positive reinforcement training, environmental enrichment, providing naturalistic environment for the animals, alternative ways of doing injections/fluid collection, acupuncture.
Pilot funding
Pilot funding is being made available to validate a question that addresses the 3Rs. To learn more about funding, including eligibility, please visit the Office of Animal Welfare’s 3Rs Pilot Funding website.
First steps towards our 3Rs goals:
The IO, OAW Director, and others are working to create a center focused on the 3Rs at UW. As a first step towards this broader goal, we’ve established a 3Rs Pilot Funding program that aims to support work on the replacement, reduction, and/or refinement of the use of animals in research. This funding mechanism will provide up to $10,000 for up to 5 proposals. Funding for this program was generously provided by the Provost and Vice Provost for Research. Our 3Rs committee solicited applications this past fall. We received a total of 16 applications, and after review and much discussion selected and we were actually able to award 6 winning proposals. As part of receiving this funding these groups will present the results of their work at a 3Rs symposium that is planned for Fall 2025.
The winning projects include:
- Two awards will develop refinements of a couple of techniques commonly employed for drug delivery in mice: intramuscular injection and oral gavage.
- One award will use human stem cells to model motor neuron disease, aiming to replace the use of mice for certain assays.
- Two final awards will explore in vitro alternatives that can reduce the number of animals needed to achieve biomedical breakthroughs.
- One of the 3Rs awards will fund a pilot study to explore innovative housing options for mice in epilepsy studies.
Making the 3Rs: More than a checkbox
Enjoy a catchy take on Russell and Burch’s 3Rs from the AALAS 2023 National Meeting.