AnimalTestInfo - Application
Non-Technical Project Summary for Animal Experiments Provide an Overview
Since the third amendment of the Animal Welfare Act and the Animal Protection - Laboratory Animal Ordinance came into force in 2013, a non-technical project summary (NTS) must be included with every application for approval of a project involving an animal experiment. The BfR publishes the NTS online in the AnimalTestInfo database (www.animaltestinfo.de) to keep the general public informed about of animal experiments. Additionally, the BfR transmits those NTS to the European database ALURES.
NTS inform about the purposes of animal experiments, about the intended benefits, and about the harms that might be expected for the animals. NTS contain information on the number and species of animals (mice, rats, etc.) intended to be used, as well as all measures adopted to meet 3R strategies: to avoid the use of animals in advance (replacement), to reduce their numbers in the experiment (reduction), to improve their well-being (refinement).
AnimalTestInfo database
After approval of a project involving animal experiments, the competent authority designates the associated NTS for publication. The Europeean Commission provides a guideline for preparing NTS (Guideline). The BfR publishes these NTS online in AnimalTestInfo within twelve months. In general, NTS are published three months after receipt.
The link to the database: https://www.animaltestinfo.de/
Scientific Evaluation of Data in AnimalTestInfo
In AnimalTestInfo, data on projects involving animal experiments is listed in a structured way within the data fields of the NTS. This structure enables targeted searches for data as well as systematic retrieval of the NTS contents.
For this purpose, scientists at the BfR have classified NTS contents in a pilot project using data from the years 2014 and 2015. The intended benefits of projects were classified with the code of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The ICD is a classification system for human medical diagnoses and is acknowledged worldwide. The assignment of NTS to ICD codes enables a very precise analysis of scientific objectives of projects.
Publication on the pilot project establishing a public database on animal testing projects “www.animaltestinfo.de”:
Schönfelder G., Grune B., Oelgeschläger M., Hensel A. Laboratory animals: German initiative opens up animal data. Nature. 2015 Mar 5;519(7541):33. https://www.nature.com/articles/519033d
The results of the pilot project with assignment of ICD codes were published in December 2017:
Bert B, Doerendahl A, Leich N, Vietze J, Steinfath M, Chmielewska J, Andreas Hensel, Barbara Grune, Gilbert Schoenfelder (2017) Rethinking 3R strategies: Digging deeper into AnimalTestInfo promotes transparency in in vivo biomedical research. PLoS Biol 15(12): e2003217. http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003217
In 2021, scientists at the Bf3R analysed how the coronavirus pandemic affected the numbers of approved laboratory animals. Based on the information in the NTPs, it was possible to calculate how many animals are expected to be used for research into the SARS-CoV-2 virus and for vaccine development in Germany.
The results of the project were published in September 2021:
Schwedhelm, P., Kusnick, J., Heinl, C., Schönfelder, G., & Bert, B. (2021). How many animals are used for SARS?CoV?2 research? An overview on animal experimentation in pre?clinical and basic research. EMBO reports, 22(10), e53751. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.202153751
The latest analyses and evaluations of NTS will be reported here.