Researchers learn to treat animals humanely

It’s 8 a.m., and 11 students sit on stools in a room where animal skeletons line the walls, outlet plugs drop from the ceiling and stainless steel tables offer the only furnishing.

Dressed in lab coats, the students each face a row of tweezers (thumb forceps, to be exact) arranged on a white cloth like silverware on a picnic blanket. But what the students do today is no picnic — they’re here to suture pigs’ feet and remove the spleens from breathing rats as part of a training course.

The goal of the course, say its instructors, is to teach lab-animal users on campus how to care for the animals properly and, above all, humanely. This includes learning about animal welfare issues, such as ways to hold a lab rat to alleviate its stress, new equipment and better techniques that enhance animal well-being.

“The quality of care is an overall campus philosophy,” says Richard Lane, associate director of the Research Animal Resource Center (RARC), an oversight organization for animal research on campus that sponsors the hands-on training class.

At UW–Madison, some 3,500 people work with lab animals ranging from zebra fish to non-human primates. Nearly 95 percent of the lab animals, however, are rodents — about 115,000 mice and 18,000 rats each year. Currently, 1,300 approved research projects involving lab animals are under way. These projects, funded by federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, mark the beginning steps to scientific advances and medical breakthroughs.

“How people feel about using animals for research depends on their perspective,” says Lane. “Computer simulations and cell cultures are good, but they do not provide the complexity that living systems do.”

Without understanding this complexity, our lives would be very different, says Scott Hubbard-Van Stelle, an RARC instructor, a veterinary technician and an “animal welfare advocate.”

When he encounters people who question the value of lab-animal research, Hubbard-Van Stelle says, “I tell people to take a walk down the children’s corridor at the hospital, where the work done in the lab is being applied to save lives.” As a cancer survivor, he adds, “I have a stake in lab research.”

Integral to this research is protecting the welfare of lab animals and providing them with the utmost care. “It doesn’t matter whether the animal is a minnow or a monkey — they all receive the same high level of care,” says Hubbard-Van Stelle.

The RARC provides free training courses that introduce lab-animal users to animal welfare issues, as well as new techniques and equipment that offer even safer and more humane care.

The center also offers funding opportunities to help labs to buy this equipment, which they also loan out. The anesthesia machines, which precisely control the delivery of anesthetic agents, regularly travel across campus.

Today, the students are enrolled in a one-day hands-on training class called “Megasurgery.” The participants range in experience from those who have never handled a lab animal before to researchers who have medical degrees.

“Now we’re going to put you all to sleep,” jokes Hubbard-Van Stelle as he dims the lights and begins the PowerPoint presentation on anesthesia. Explaining the different types of anesthesia, including injectable and inhaled, he says, “If you consider it to be painful to you, assume it’s painful to the animal.” Pain, he adds, causes stress, which may in turn alter research results.

Hubbard Van-Stelle stands in front of the class, holding a syringe in one hand and a white mouse in the other. He shows the class where and how to inject the anesthesia. After observing the proper restraint techniques, several students give injections a try.

As the tiny creatures drift into peaceful, temporary sleep, the instructor says, “Rodents don’t shut their eyes when they’re anesthesized, so it’s important to cover their eyes with a special ointment or artificial tears.” He squeezes a drop onto each sleeping mouse’s eye.

Providing the best possible care to all lab animals is required by law. The Animal Welfare Act, passed in 1966, stipulates that lab animals live in properly sized cages and receive appropriate amounts of exercise and light. It also requires safe transportation and veterinary treatment for the animals as well as thorough records. This law also says that a lab animal can undergo no more than one surgical or invasive procedure during its lifetime, unless justified and approved for scientific reasons by the Animal Care and Use Committee.

The federal agencies that fund lab animal research on this campus regulate these laws. If labs fail to uphold the laws, the funding agencies could stop all campus research, jeopardizing not just current projects but also future advances in science and medicine.

“If we don’t follow the rules and regulations, NIH could withhold research funds,” explains Lane. “On this campus that would have a huge impact. We probably wouldn’t even be able to make payrolls.”

To ensure that university faculty and staff meet the federal provisions, UW–Madison has six oversight committees (most universities have only one): There is an all-campus committee, as well as five others based in each of the schools and colleges that conduct lab-animal research. “We have one of the largest research programs in the country,” says Lane, “and the number of oversight committees reflects this.”

After learning how to properly anesthetize an animal before a procedure, the students move on to suturing. A short video offers an introduction, but a stinky, pink pig’s foot dropped on the cloth in front of each student provides the real instruction. It gives each student the opportunity to practice suturing on real skin and muscle tissue.

The students carefully unwrap scalpel blades, grab them with forceps and then insert them into holders. With them, they each cut a 1-inch incision into the thick, leathery flesh. The students choose among a variety of curved needles, already laced with a variety of suture threads — black, braided silk; pink, twisted surgical cotton; clear, monofilament nylon. They begin to stitch, practicing different patterns that would challenge any seamstress.

The pigs’ feet, now dressed in different suture patterns, have provided the perfect model. Says first-year School of Veterinary Medicine student Jodi Woods, “I really enjoyed having the chance to use different types of suture so I could begin to understand their differences in strength and material.”

The students, after nibbling on lunch from the “Feed Bag Deli,” prep for surgery. Removing the spleen — a readily accessible organ that an animal can live healthfully without — will enable the students to practice several techniques during organ removal.

RARC instructor and veterinary technologist Beth Schiffman explains these techniques. Before the students begin the surgery, Schiffman talks through the steps — more than two dozen, including anesthetizing the rat, shaving its belly and scrubbing in. Just as in any operation, she says, the surgeon, the surgical area and the instruments should be completely sterile.

“Some universities,” she explains, “rely only on videos for training. But it’s much different to actually look down and see a chest moving up and down. The students develop a much better appreciation of all the variables involved when the training is hands-on.”

To assist the students, two other veterinarians from RARC circulate, ready to help at any time.

Just as they did with the pigs’ feet, the students hold the scalpel between their thumb and index finger. Pressing the blade against the shaved skin, the incision cuts just below the flesh and stretches over an inch. The students then cut through the muscle layer directly below.

There’s hardly any blood.

“If you use good technique,” Schiffman explains, “there shouldn’t be much blood loss.”

Once the small intestine is exposed, the students search for the spleen, an organ important to the immune system.

Located on the rat’s lower left side, and similar in size and color to a flattened kidney bean, the students must now detach the spleen from the veins and arteries that have kept it a working part of the body. They tie off the larger vessels with suture thread or tiny clips and cauterize the smaller ones.

“Make sure your rats are doing fine,” Schiffman reminds the class.

The rats, breathing normally, are ready to be closed up. The students’ first step: using absorbable, single stitches to suture the abdominal cavity.

“The stitches should be no father apart than the diameter of the small intestine,” advises one guest instructor.

Once the procedure is complete, the students, with the help of an instructor, close the skin using staples less than a centimeter wide. The final step: completing the animal’s surgical record.

Time: about one hour. All 11 rats survive the surgery.

As the students — still wearing gloves, surgical masks and caps — carry their instruments to the sinks where they’re cleaned, Schiffman announces to the group: “The RARC has a no-abandonment policy. That means that if you ever need help using a piece of equipment, working on an animal or even figuring out how much anesthesia to give, we’re always here to help you. Just give us a call, and we’ll be there.”