Prima Nexus sponsored LASAM's 19th AGM and the 6th AFLAS Congress, and held laboratory animal talks, in 2014

From the Prima Nexus archive: a look back at June to November 2014.

KUALA LUMPUR, 11 November 2014: Prima Nexus sponsored the Scientific Seminar and 19th Annual General Meeting of the Laboratory Animal Science Association of Malaysia (LASAM) at Le Meridien Hotel, KL Sentral, on 18 August 2014, and the 6th Congress of the Asian Federation of Laboratory Animal Science Associations (AFLAS), which LASAM hosted at the Royale Chulan Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, on 11 and 12 November. During the year, Prima Nexus also took part in laboratory animal training and talks at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and the Institute for Medical Research (IMR).

A seminar on research, welfare law and diets

The LASAM day ran from 8.30 am to 2.00 pm. Dr Tan Choo Hock of Universiti Malaya spoke on the use of laboratory animals to characterise snake venoms, and Ms Ruzila Ismail of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) on a combination gene therapy for colon cancer in a mouse model. LASAM's President, Assoc. Prof. Dr Abdul Rahim Mutalib of UPM, summarised the proposed Animal Welfare Act and what it would mean for research, and Ms Imai Fumiko from Japan covered contemporary topics in laboratory animal diets. The 19th AGM followed. Prima Nexus sponsored the day and worked with LASAM on it, and the event flyer named Prima Nexus as the sponsor.

Training at UiTM, and talks at IMR

From 9 to 11 June, Prima Nexus worked with the organisers of the 2nd Laboratory Animal Care and Use Workshop at UiTM's Faculty of Pharmacy in Puncak Alam, with lectures and practicals on the ethics of animal research, the care of rats, mice and rabbits, restraint, blood sampling, anaesthesia and euthanasia. In October, IMR's Laboratory Animal Resource Unit ran continuing medical education talks and invited Prima Nexus to take part. On 28 October, Prima Nexus put together a day of laboratory animal talks in IMR's Auditorium Ungku Omar, with a diet specialist from Japan among the speakers. The next morning it held a Laboratory Animal Care Seminar at UiTM Sungai Buloh, on diets and specific pathogen free (SPF) animals.

The 6th AFLAS Congress, and Prima Nexus's part

LASAM had worked for three years to bring the AFLAS congress to Kuala Lumpur. After pre-congress workshops, the congress opened with a keynote by Dato' Dr Mohammad Azmie Zakaria of the Department of Veterinary Services on how Malaysia regulates animal use in research, and speakers from Japan, India and AAALAC International covered mouse phenotyping, laws and animal welfare, toxicology testing and guidelines on euthanasia. Prima Nexus sponsored the congress. Earlier in 2014 it had run a Discussion Series session on diets and bedding, and in 2015 it sponsored LASAM's 20th AGM. More photos are on the seminar's event page, and the animal studies page shows this work today.