Save your afternoon on September 27, 2024 to take part in the fourth edition of the conference "Animal testing and society: improving animal welfare, a review of best practices for animals used in research"

For the fourth year in a row, the Institut Pasteur's Committee for Ethics in Animal Experimentation (CETEA), Center for Animal Resources and Research (C2RA) and Department of Communications and Public Affairs are jointly organizing a conference on the use of animals in research. This year's conference will take place on September 27, from 2 to 5.30pm. It will be open to all in the Emile Duclaux lecture hall and can also be followed online via Teams.

This year, the theme of the conference will be the third R (refinement), and more broadly the best approaches to improve animal welfare. The aim of the event is to review practices at the Institut Pasteur and compare them with those developed in our field at EPFL (the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). Several specific examples will be presented and will serve as a basis to discuss existing resources that can help meet this aim at the Institut Pasteur and what can be done to make further progress.

Julie Henry, Chair of the Institut Pasteur's Institutional Review Board (IRB), will give a talk to encourage discussion about the project review processes used at the Institut Pasteur and consider how to respond if the general condition/welfare of patients/animals is affected.

To bring the afternoon to a close, the event organizers will have the pleasure of welcoming Luc Mounier, holder of the Chair in Animal Welfare at VetAgro Sup (Lyon Veterinary School), who will give a lecture that will help contextualize the Institut Pasteur's research using laboratory animals in the broader framework of growing societal concerns about animal welfare.

 

The conference program is as follows:

2-2.10pm: Introduction

Benoit Robert, Chair of the CETEA; Jean-Claude Dupont, Head of the Ethics Unit; Jean Jaubert, Head of the C2RA

2.10-2.40pm: Program developed at EPFL

Isabelle Barde, Alexandre Widmer, Xavier Warot – Center of PhenoGenomics1

2.40-3pm: Program developed by the animal welfare body at the Institut Pasteur

Myriam Mattei, Franck Bourgade – Central Animal Facility

3-3.40pm: Initiatives by scientists to reduce the impact of experimental procedures on animal welfare at the Institut Pasteur

Timothy Wai – Mitochondrial Biology. Using ultrasound to reduce the severity of procedures

Anne Derbise – Yersinia. Refining administration methods

Benoit Forget & Fabrice De Chaumont – Human Genetics and Cognitive Functions. Automated chronic acquisition systems for studying individual and social behaviors

Régis Tournebize – Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Inserm 1135. Using intravital imaging to reduce the severity of procedures

3.40-3.55pm: Break

3.55-4.25pm: Comparing approaches with the Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Julie Henry, Chair of the IRB – Triangle Laboratory, ENS Lyon2

4.25-5.10pm: Plenary lecture: Taking animal welfare into account as part of a coordinated scientific approach that is beneficial to animals, humans and the environment

Luc Mounier – Chair in Animal Welfare, VetAgro Sup3

5.10-5.30pm: Round table & Conclusion/Prospects

¹ : https://www.epfl.ch/research/facilities/cpg/
² : https://triangle.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?article6979
³ : https://chaire-bea.vetagro-sup.fr/

 
Download the program

 

Prior registration is required. Once you register you will be sent the link to log into the conference. To register, please email cetea@pasteur.fr, indicating whether you wish to attend in person or via video conference (please attend in person if possible as this will stimulate discussions between participants and speakers).

We hope that lots of you will be able to take part in this event on a topic that is the focus of considerable debate.