Global Impact of Animal Research on Infectious Diseases: A CDC Perspective

Abstract

Policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and it supports educational programs and monitors compli­ ance. This is a very important part of what we do involving our assured institutions and the PHS funding components. It ensures the humane use of animals in our research, in our testing and training, and contributes to the quality of what we do in our research. NIH also supports animal model systems and alterna­ tives. I want to say a bit more about our intramural animal care and use program and extramural support of animal re­ search. Virtually all of our institutes that have an intramural component—24 of them—have animals in their research programs. Almost 50% of the NIH-funded grants and con­ tracts that we support involve animals. As this is a major part of the research program here at NIH it is very important that we have appropriate compliance and oversight of this pro­ cess. For the intramural program in 2009, we used 1.3 mil­ lion animals; 81% of them were mice but there were more than 20 different species—fish and frogs, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, nonhuman primates, birds, dogs, cats, pigs, and sheep. There’s a variety of animals supported here in the intramural program, and NIH has a number of resources available if you are looking for model organisms for bio­ medical research. Our website provides information on model organisms, both mammalian and nonmammalian models in­ cluding Arabidopsis, the mustard plant. We also have a number of programs that support the de­ velopment of nonmammalian models and the improvement of mammalian models. At the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) the Biological Models and Materials Re­ search Program supports research to develop and broaden the utility of models including cell culture, nonmammalian model organisms, and nonbiological systems such as math­ ematical modeling or computer modeling. These are exam­ ples of our interest in alternatives to the use of animals. The NCRR Laboratory Animal Science Program supports animal research–related resources and research training through awards and grants contracts and cooperative agree­ ments. Through its Division of Comparative Medicine, NCRR awards animal research grants and resource grants to develop, characterize, and improve mammalian animal models for hu­ man disease and study. NIH is interested in both improving mammalian model systems and offering nonmammalian and nonanimal alternatives. The NLM has another resource, the Bibliography on Alternatives to Animal Testing (ALTBIB), which [includes] a search engine to identify resources on al­ ternatives to the use of live vertebrates in biomedical research and testing. On the ALTBIB web page you can identify the sources, put in keywords, and find available alternatives. Much of the program for today focuses on biomedical re­ search using animal models and how it has advanced knowledge to find prevention, cures, and treatments for the many serious diseases and conditions of humans and, of course, of animals.