Meeting the Requirements of the Animal Welfare Act Workshop

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations require principal investigators to provide Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) with documentation demonstrating that their activities do not unnecessarily duplicate previous experiments and that alternatives to procedures that may cause more than momentary pain or distress to the animals have been considered (9 C.F.R. § 2.31 (d)(1)(ii-iii)(2022)). An alternative is any method which results in the replacement or reduction of animals, or refinement of experimental techniques. One way to meet this federal mandate is through an alternatives literature search.

The objectives of the workshop are to provide:

• An overview of the AWA and its regulations;

• An introduction to AWIC and other 3Rs organizations;
• A review of the 3Rs alternatives concept;
• Guidance for where to find 3Rs literature and resources;
• Instruction on database literature searching techniques (e.g. search syntax); and
• A demonstration of an alternatives literature search.

This free workshop is particularly beneficial to researchers/principal investigators, animal care staff, veterinarians, IACUC members, librarians, information specialists, animal use program administrators, and others working with animals in research, teaching, testing, or exhibition. However, anyone can register.