Designing animal studies to improve research reproducibility and reduce animal use

At the invitation of the University of Bern, international experts worked out new recommendations for the design of animal studies. They encourage a paradigm shift to improve the reproducibility of scientific results and reduce animal numbers. Animal experiments are typically conducted under highly standardized laboratory conditions. While standardization is meant to improve reproducibility of scientific results, in reality reproducibility is surprisingly low. To produce more robust results, experts from different fields of research now recommend introducing biological variation into the design of animal experiments. "The ability to reproduce scientific findings through an independent replication study is the acid test by which scientists distinguish facts from mere anecdotes," says lead author Bernhard Voelkl, who hosted the workshop together with Hanno Würbel, professor of animal welfare at the University of Bern. Würbel adds: "Poor reproducibility produces economic costs and scientific uncertainty - and also raises ethical concerns, if it hampers medical progress and animals are used for inconclusive studies." Last year, Voelkl, Würbel and other experts in animal biology, experimental design, and biostatistics convened to discuss strategies to address this challenge.