Abstract
Animal based research needs to strictly adhere to the 3R principle (replace, refine, reduce), not only for the ethical justification of the use of animals in science, but also to ensure the highest quality of data due to standardization. With the implementation of the EU Directive 2010/63 within national law it is mandatory to perform a ‘severity classification of procedures on the basis of estimated levels of pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm that is inflicted on the animals’.
However, scientifically sound scales as well as broadly accepted and applicable model-specific measures to grade this in routine work are lacking. This deficit in the research landscape impacts ethical considerations as well as the quality of animal based research data. In addition, the discrepancy of current regulations and scientific knowledge momentarily hinders biomedical research that still requires testing hypotheses in animals.
Therefore, the current Special Issue ‘Severity Assessment’ contains reports from relevant research projects and networks that were implemented to overcome this situation. Insight is needed from various fields to gain model-specific methods for assessing severity that can be applied in routine settings. These methods shall provide objective and gradable parameters that enable the correlation of test results with severity grades, for example, those defined by EU regulations. Existing methods are to be validated and have to be refined; new methods have to be developed. In this context, minimal or non-invasive surveillance and imaging approaches will be indispensable. Based on this knowledge, research models and procedures will be refined to minimize discomfort by identifying and approaching critical stress factors. As stress also contributes to variation, detecting these critical factors will also help to better standardize animal models and to enhance quality of research data based on animal experimentation.
We do hope with this Special Issue we can foster a discussion on Severity Assessment and give the readers an insight into current research topics.