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A multi-site approach to implementing the 3Rs in policy and practice

European Directive 20120/063 EU and its French transposition

PHENOMIN nodes work under European Directive 20120/063 EU and its French transposition (European Directive 2010/063 EU, French « Decree n° 2013-118 » about protection of animals used for scientific purposes):

Ethical concepts

Following the European Directive also means that we work following ethical concepts:

In 1959, Russel & Burtch have developed the famous 3 Rs concept in order to protect animals used for scientific purposes:

Harm-Benefit Analysis (HBA) : the main goal of this analysis is to make a balance between

In order to replace, PHENOMIN:

In order to reduce, PHENOMIN:

We are involved in the setting up of an alternative to reduce the number of animals used and improve the quality control to determine the ability of a mutant mouse line to recover after cryopreservation. Our recent publication (Blastocyst genotyping for quality control of mouse mutant archives: an ethical and economical approach. Transgenic Res. 2015; 24(5): 921–927. F Scavizzi et al.,2015) described a new technical approach which is now routinely used in PHENOMIN projects.

PHENOMIN has implemented electroporation for the delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 with or without small donor DNA. This method allows the drastic reduction of the number of donor females and fertilized oocytes. We consistently obtained high efficiency mouse genome editing for multiple genes, and we successfully generated mouse embryos with a variety of editing schemes, including indel mutations, point mutations, genomic deletions, and small precise insertions. Taken together, CRISPR-electroporation is a simple, economic, 3Rs friendly, high throughput, and highly efficient technique for genome editing in vivo, which can replace the traditional microinjection-dependent genome editing technique in mice and in other mammalian species ( Icon Generating rodent model by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing (480.9 KB) ).

In order to refine, PHENOMIN:

Ethics committees and project authorization

All PHENOMIN projects that involve animals have received an approval from our ethic committees and an authorization from the Ministry of Research.

Projects evaluations are realized following the 3Rs and HBA concepts with a huge attention on refinement (use of anesthesia, of painkillers when needed, respect of good practices).

Following the national convention that our ethics committees have signed, our members have different point of view being researchers, technicians, vets or "naive" representing the community. Moreover, our teams are trained to perform those evaluations properly (the GIRCOR has set up trainings dedicated to ethical committee members). 

Animal Welfare Bodies

Projects authorizations are released before starting. Once they have started, they are followed on the field by our Animal Welfare Bodies (AWB).

In addition to this mission, AWB main missions are advising research teams, answering ethical and animal welfare questions, visiting animal facilities to check the well going of protocols and developing an ethical way of working with animals in the long term. Thus, AWB are proactive to improve animals’ living conditions.