You're listening to The Husk
A presentation of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln's
Department of Agricultural Leadership,
Education and Communication.
I'm your host, Alex Voichoskie. Thanks for joining.
And today, we're diving into a topic
That's highly debated; Using animals in research.
Dr. Heath: Would you want to be the first person
that ever took that drug without knowing what
was going to happen?
I don't think I would sign up for that.
Alex: That was the University of Nebraska - Lincoln's
attending veterinarian, Dr. Kelly Heath.
He also serves as the director
of the institutional animal care program
at UNL. A program that takes extraordinary measures
to ensure good welfare of every single
laboratory animal used in UNL research.
Dr. Heath: The animal care program
for the University of Nebraska, we call it the
Institutional Animal Care program. It's made
up of a couple components.
One component is the administrative office.
We oversee animal research, teaching, the extension outreach programs
across the state of Nebraska as well as on campus.
So any animals used in research,
any animals that are used in a classroom teaching
situation, or just in a demonstration project
would come under our oversight.
We do that collaboratively with Institutional
Animal Care and Use committee.
That's a committee of 13 people
and it functions as our ethical review board
so we review all animal use protocols
that are proposed for use and
goes through our review process,
pretty rigorous review process.
Alex: Reviewing those applications
is the Institutional Animal Care and
Use committee, or IACUC.
Kathy Pinkerton serves as the Assistant
Director of the animal care program
and head of compliance and training
for IACUC.
She explains who sits on that committee.
Kathy: IACUC is the Institutional Animal Care
and Use committee.
That committee is made up of
different faculty form different areas,
different colleges, different areas of study.
We consider them our expert
in subject matter depending on
when an animal research protocol comes through.
A protocol tells us from the beginning to
end what's going to happen
with the animal research.
We're very very picky
on what is in there
and that it's followed correctly.
When the protocol is submitted
we, go over it with the PI (principal investigator)
and then we submit it to the committee.
That committee is made up of
animal science faculty, fishery and wildlife,
biochemistry, vet science, ect.
We also always make sure there is
a public member on that committee.
The public member is our eyes
and ears for what the people of the
great state of Nebraska wants to see
happen with our animal research,
so they bring in an ethical bend to it.
They look at it like " Folks dumb it down
so I know what's really going
on here." They sometimes
have to dumb it down for me too.
That committee looks at all
of these things plus the protocol,
finally gives it their stamp.
Often times it will go back
for edits; sometimes it goes back and forth
several times.
But that's the standing committee that we have.
Our office actually takes our direction
from that committee.
We're here to make sure that
what they have asked happen, actually happens.
Alex: But before researchers
can even submit an application
that goes through that rigorous approval
process by the IACUC they must go through
IACUC training and Kathy explains
what that training looks like.
Kathy: The very first thing that we
do when somebody says they want to
work with animals is that we have several
classes at the beginning of each semester.
We have one class, we do it several times,
so it's a general regulation training
and we do basically how things
happen at UNL.
Here's what we do with animals,
heres how we take care of animals.
If you want to take care of animals
this is how you need to do it.
This is how you have to get ahold
of us if you need to do things.
Here's how you keep yourself safe.
Make sure that you have any allergies,
that you're wearing proper masks,
personal protective equipment.
We talk about who the people are
that keep an eye on us.
They get a really broad picture.
I just tell them right from the beginning
that this is as boring as it gets.
We're not going to tell you how to
hold an animal, we're going to talk
to you about the rules and don't mess up!
Alex: Once researchers have completed IACUC
training, they begin submitting detailed
applications for their research projects
involving animals.
Those applications will be thoroughly
reviewed by IACUC to ensure good animal
welfare and Kathy explains just how rigorous
that application process is.
Kathy: First I want to know who's working
for him. I want to know who the grad students are.
I want to know who their post doc's are.
I want to know what his training is.
I want to know who the staff is.
I want to know where the funding is coming from.
I want to know his experience. This is
a big deal. We make sure that
we actually ask for his resume to be attached.
Because that really gives us a broad
view besides having just that little
text box of "I know how
to work with animals cause I was in 4-H once."
So then we talk about
who the veterinarian is going to be
and who's taking care of the animals that way.
That he goes in the specifics on what
is actually going to happen to the animal.
We're going to take a blood draw.
The animal may be restrained for "X"
amount of time. We're going to give
him this kind of injection. At the end
of the studey we're going to perhaps
take certain tissues. Here's how we're
going to euthanize the animal.
Here's how we're going to reintroduce the
animal back into the herd when
we're finished with them. We actually have
a fairly liberal adoption policy.
It's all about the animals.
Finally, we ask for them if they have investigated
alternatives to any painful or distressful
procedures or that they've looked at all
procedures. Have they looked at other
papers? Have they looked at other publications?
They give us an ethical cost benefit
as to why they're using animals.
I mean, whose benefiting?
Sometimes it's the animals that are benefiting
sometimes is humans. Sometimes it's both.
I have to go backwards a little bit, Alex.
In that fourth section that we talk about.
We ask for a lay summary.
That lay summary has to be directed at
let's say a high school student.
That's a very important section because
it gives you in a nutshell
our public member can understand it.
Finally, if they are going to include surgery,
there's a full surgery section and that is
everything from scrub to close.
Tell me what you're doing, how's
the comfort and well-being of the
animal being considered. These sections are all
reviewed by the veterinarians.
Then often times might go back to the researcher
and say, this is an old fashioned pain
med, we've got better pain meds. Or I have a
better injection for this. Finally, we asked
about if they are using any controlled
drugs which is important that we keep track
of those. They're always locked up
and we dole them out a little
at a time and make sure that everything
is written down about what we have to
do with it.
Alex: What kind of research projects
are going on at the University that
involve the use of animals.
Dr. Heath provided a few examples.
Dr. Heath: Well there's lots of things
that are ongoing. Some early discovery
things, cardiovascular disease,
a lot of dietary things, folks working with
food allergies and seeing how that effects that.
We also have some folks doing some work
for cancer research.
We have other departmental Department of Defense
funded things that are
looking at battlefield treatments that
would be really interesting I think.
Those are exciting projects and we really
want to promote those as much as we
can. We're doing some really really cool work
early stage research that could give
us some patents and some technology that
are going to help. We also have a group of
biomedical engineers that are new hires on campus
and they're working on new
instrumentation and things like
that. That's really exciting to help those
folks along as well.
Alex: All of these research projects are
regulated by the Institutional Animal Care Program.
But the University itself is also legally
regulated. Dr. Heath explains a
little bit more about animal
well-fare legislation.
Dr. Heath: We come under
several governmental programs that gives
oversight of our program. First of all,
the United States Department of Agriculture,
USDA Animal Welfare Act, that initially came into
being back in the 1960s. Been amended
several times since then. So that primarily
provides oversight over biomedical research
animals. Not mice and rats but rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters
and farm animals that are used in
biomedical research.
Besides that, we also come under the public
health service assurance OLAW,
the acronym , it stands for the Office of
Laboratory Animal Wellfare.
We have a assurance with
the public health service that says we will
abide by all their rules.
That's part of the National
Institute of Health that we see there.
We also do what we call AAALAC accreditation.
AAALAC is a great big acronym
stand for The Association for Assessment and
Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care.
This is a third party non-government
group that actually just comes around
and provides independent oversight of our
facilities and our animal care program.
It's usually kind of a peer review.
People in similar positions to mine
from different institutions will serve
on those sight visits committees that
make that accreditation.
Alex: Although the general public
may not know about animal well-fare
legislation the regulations for research
at the University or even research that goes on
through the University, Kathy is trying to
change that through public outreach and education.
Kathy: This is really important to me and our
staff is really proud of our facility.
I have a staff and we have a really nice remodeled facility
and it works well. Our staff is always a little
embarrassed when they say something in public
and they say "I work with research animals."
Right away you're, Oh my God, You're using
hot pokers and sticking things
in their eyes. You you're going, "No, we
don't do any of that stuff." Ya know.
So we've all decided that we need to let
people know what we do.
There's been various paths that we've taken.
Dr. Kreikemeier and I have gone to a
couple of different high schools to talk to
the science students about what we do.
We just had an event where we rented booths in
both Unions and our staff was available to
talk to anybody that wanted to know
about research and what we do
in our facility.
Our facility is locked down for the safety
of the animals. You have to have key card access.
But that makes it looks permit-able and inaccessible.
It has to be locked down because there's some
cool research going on there. We don't want
anyone to mess up that. So we just said, you want to
come in? We had a sign up sheet there.
We gave tours of the facility and we want to
open it up. You want to see what we're doing.
I don't know if you've seen, Rudy the steer.
The fisulated steer. This whole process with the
mobile beef lab, I am so proud of that.
Because that takes that anxt from people when
they see this, Oh my gosh, he's got a hole
in his side. And I go, well, here's how it's done.
And look at him. He's the happiest steer in
the free world. He's going to be around forever.
Most steers are done by about 30 months.
Getting out there and letting people know. That's part of my job.
If people have questions, they come to us and I
always encourage that.
Alex: Despite legislation and public outreach
there's still a few misconceptions from
the public about animals used in research.
Dr. Heath explained a few of those common
misconceptions that he hears.
Dr. Heath: One of the most common misconceptions
is that animals are put in living conditions
that are not appropriate for them, that
might be distressful to them.
I like to think that we do a really
good job of providing for animal care.
Animal care staff that works for us
takes a great deal of pride in providing a
great environment and care for those animals.
We think we do a better job of caring
for our research animals in maybe we do
some people we do in our human institutions.
So like I said, we're really proud of the care
we provide. We check for humidity,
temperature, cleanliness, we monitor all
of those things on a daily basis and
provide for the appropriate care.
Alex: Kathy added to that list of misconceptions and
explained what she does to address
those concerns.
Kathy: I think the old 1970 version
of the rats and make-up research,
this one haunts us all of the time.
They're going, "Oh my God, they're putting all
this in that poor rabbit's eyes."
It can not happen like they say. It
absolutely can not happen that way.
But it's difficult to get that message across
because one of the first things that they say,
"Well you euthanize animals."
I say, yeah but we're doing liver research and
you got to have the liver. We're pretty user
friendly when it comes to the animals
going to the right spot. We have a very
broad adoption policy. That doesn't mean
that we adopt them all out but we reuse
animals whenever possible. So perhaps if
an animals is used for one project, it can be
transfered to another. Therefore you're reducing
the number of animals that you use as a whole.
The misconception is the building itself.
It's locked down, it's secret.
It's not. We're more than happy to have you come in.
We actually had an emergency planning with the
fire department and the police department.
Several years ago we had a mock up
tornado hit our building and we wanted to
make sure we knew the generators
would work and the emergency lighting would work ect.
The police and fire department just hesitant
to go into the building.
They're going, "We don't want to go in there, that's scary."
And we're going, well no it isn't.
But yeah because look at all of this stuff. We gotta put on all this stuff
Sorry but that's not protecting you,
that's protecting our animals.
What you have could make our animals sick
so you're going to wear all of this stuff.
I don't want all the dirt and germs that's
out here to come in.
It really was a shocker to them
when they found out. If it was an emergency,
knock yourself out, you can walk in, save
our animals, do whatever you have to do
you're not going to get anything.
Alex: Dr. Heath also addresses those
misconceptions about using animals in research
and he always emphasizes three key takeaways.
Dr. Heath: The takeaways when I come into work
everyday and I tell my staff that we have
three basic bullet points that we need
to make sure that we take care of
on a daily basis.
First of all, that animals in our care are
taken care of ethically and appropriately.
Second of all, we need to do that so
that we're in complainance with the federal
state, local and University regulations, which
sounds easy but is actually a pretty big task.
And the third thing is I like to be a resource
and an advocate to help people advance
their research projects here on campus
as well as the teaching projects. Make that
experience for our students
as good as it can be.
We're really fortunate here on East Campus
at UNL to have an animal facility that people
can actually get in and see, tough and experience
those. Many universities don't have that resource
available that's forty miles away on a research farm.
Every student that wants to be involved in animal
agriculture in some way can have
a really good experience here.
Alex: If you'd like to learn
more about the Institutional Animal Care Program
The Institutional Care and Use Committee or
even just research through the University
of Nebraska - Lincoln that uses animals
visit research.unl.edu.
A special thanks to UNL attending vet Dr. Kelly Heath and
Animal Care Assistant Director Kathy Pinkerton for
providing details about animal research.
And thanks to our audience for joining us
today for this episode of The Husk.
For the University of Nebraska - Lincoln's
Departments of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication
I'm Alex Voichoskie reporting.