Workshop on Laboratory Animal Handling and Ethics

Who organised it

The workshop was organised by the Research and Scholarly Activity Committee of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at UCSI University, and held at the university's South Wing in Cheras. The committee's welcome note said it was the second workshop of its kind at UCSI. Its aim was to prepare academics and students to use and care for animals in research, following the 3Rs: replace, reduce and refine.

Lectures and practical sessions

Mr Low Kiat Cheong, secretary of the UKM Animal Ethics Committee, from the Laboratory Animal Resource Unit at the UKM Faculty of Medicine, led the course. Day one covered the care and management of laboratory animals, animal ethics in research, biosafety, and the proper ways to handle, restrain and anaesthetise mice and rats, including intravenous injection and bleeding, followed by a first practical session in the pharmacology and physiology laboratory. Day one also had a talk by an invited guest, Dr Chae Ji Soo of PerkinElmer, on tools for whole-animal optical imaging.

Day two opened with a talk by the second invited guest, Mr Terrence Hoe Chin Yew of Interscience Sdn Bhd (ITS), on zebrafish as an animal model in research. The rest of the day was hands-on: demonstrations of oral gavage and bleeding, and practical sessions on anaesthesia, intravenous injection and bleeding in mice and rats.

Prima Nexus as a sponsor

Prima Nexus was one of several sponsors. Its support was in kind: the printed programme books, pens, sticky notes, lanyards and workshop bags given to participants, with the bags carrying the Prima Nexus name. Work with laboratory animals is still part of what Prima Nexus supports for researchers today, through its animal studies service.

More of our work with UCSI, UKM.