CNB Animal Facility
Culture of Care and 3Rs
Culture of Care
The culture of care starts with an institutional commitment of the National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB) which states that we are committed to five clear objectives:
- To replace animal experiments and to promote the development of non-animal research methods where possible.
- If it is necessary to use animals, carry them out in compliance with the principles of the 3Rs.
- To provide the oversight committees, Animal Welfare Agency (ABWA) of the CNB with the necessary resources to contribute to the improvement of animal care and welfare (CNB ethics committee).
- To provide reliable information to society to generate greater knowledge and understanding (statistics and news).
- To improve welfare and staff training in animal research (Training and SOPs)
3Rs
Whenever animals are to be used in our centre, prior authorisation from the Community of Madrid is required, provided after an assessment of the harm that may be caused and the benefit to be obtained, explained in a project where the principles of the 3Rs have been taken into account.
Replacement
Priority should be given to finding and using alternatives to the use of animals. For this purpose, databases of alternative methods are provided:
– Database on alternative methods. DB-ALM https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EURL-ECVAM/datasets/DBALM/LATEST/online/dbalm.html
– European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM): http://ecvam.jrc.it/
– Spanish Network for the Development of Alternative Methods to Animal Experimentation: http://www.remanet.net/
– 3Ranker portal: https://www.open3r.org/
– 3Rs InfoHub: https://www.3rsinfohub.de/index.html
– European consensus-platform for alternatives: http://ecopa.eu/
– European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/european-partnership-alternative-approaches-animal-testing_en
– EU Science Hub – EURL ECVAM Biomedical research (recopilación de ensayos de métodos alternativos en biomedicina): https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/eu-reference-laboratory-alternatives-animal-testing-eurl-ecvam/biomedical-research_en?prefLang=es
– National Centre for the Replacement Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research: https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/
– Non-animal technologies NAT https://www.nat-database.org/
– Re-place https://re-place.be/
Refinement
Housing, handling and all techniques used in animal experimentation should minimise pain, suffering and stress to the animals.
– Sociedad Española para las Ciencias del Animal de Laboratorio. https://secal.es/
– Red Española de Órganos encargados del Bienestar Animal (ROEBA) https://secal.es/roeba/#
– Austrian ·Rs Center: https://www.reprefred.eu/Refinement
– Norway’s 3R centre and National Consensus Platform for the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of animal experiments: https://norecopa.no/wiki
– Utrecht University – Humanitarian endpoints: https://humane-endpoints.info/
Reduction
The minimum number of animals shall be used to allow responses to be answered in the experiments. It is ethically unacceptable to use animals without justification. The sample size calculation in the experiments allows us to use neither more animals than necessary nor less than necessary. The use of too few animals, if they do not provide answers to the experiments, is also ethically unacceptable.
– SECAL Statistical Design Group in Animal Research: https://secal.es/pagina-grupo-de-diseno-estadistico-en-investigacion-animal/
– BIOTERIOS (resources on statistics applied to the design of animal experiments): https://bioterios.com/post.php?s=2022-07-13-recursos-sobre-estadstica-aplicada-al-diseo-de-experimentos-con-animales
– Experimental Design Assistant: https://eda.nc3rs.org.uk/
– Statistical experiment design for animal research (article Carlos Óscar Sorzano): https://i2pc.es/coss/Articulos/Sorzano2018d.pdf
Public information on use of animals
As part of the policy of transparency to which the CNB animal facility is attached, we present the latest statistics on the use of animals in six-monthly periods.
Report animals used second half of 2024
A detailed report of the animals used in research and the total number of animals registered at the CNB during this period can be downloaded from the following link:
Report used animals first half of 2024
A detailed report of the animals used in research and the total number of animals registered at the CNB during this period can be downloaded from the following link:
Report used animals second half of 2023
A detailed report of the animals used in research and the total number of animals registered at the CNB during this period can be downloaded from the following link:
Report used animals first half of 2023
A detailed report of the animals used in research and the total number of animals registered at the CNB during this period can be downloaded from the following link:
