https:/.../edbab37ff2a622b533c344baca6e6440.mp3

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.