Organ-on-a-chip is a relatively new technology that reconstitutes the functions of human organs on devices as small as a computer memory stick. Each organ-on-a-chip is composed of a clear flexible polymer lined with human cells...

Veterinary technician Evelyn Skoumbourdis and environmental enrichment coordinator Casey Coke Murphy discuss proper feeding of small laboratory mammals Due to their smaller size and handleability, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and rabbits are widely used in...

Healthy laboratory animals who are no longer needed in research deserve the chance to be rehomed. The practice of rehoming retired laboratory animals is more common with dogs, but other species are also deserving of...

The heart of any laboratory animal facility is its animal care staff. Dedicated and compassionate animal care technicians can make a tremendous difference in the quality of the animals’ lives. One such committed individual is...

In the last issue of the AWI Quarterly, we reported on a study recently published in the journal Science (Reinhold et al., 2019). In that study, researchers who were examining the neural underpinnings of decision-making...

AWI advocates for improving the care, housing, and handling of animals in research facilities to spare them needless suffering. To help achieve this, we offer Refinement Grants of up to $10,000 to develop and test...

As we feared, the NIH has begun announcing that many of the chimps are not eligible to be moved to sanctuary. Every one of the remaining forty-four chimps at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) in...

Despite AAALAC’s mission statement that voluntary accreditation “enhances the quality of research, testing and education by promoting humane and responsible research animal care and use,” the USDA record shows that animal suffering and death has...

New research out of Purdue University shows that the beliefs of laboratory animal personnel are highly associated with their implementation of welfare-enhancing enrichment techniques. This study focused on the promising welfare-enhancing technique of rat tickling...

In September, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a plan to reduce and eventually eliminate its reliance on animal testing to assess the danger of chemicals. Currently, the EPA performs, or requires chemical companies to perform...