Sharing of animal tissues

 

The University of Newcastle Animal Care and Ethics Committee (ACEC) regards the use of tissue from freshly euthanased animals by a researcher to be a reasonable mechanism for reducing the number of animals required for research/teaching purposes. Thus this practice is encouraged. Prior animal ethics approval is not required for this practice provided that:

• The animal is killed as part of another legitimate authorised process (eg. part of another currently approved protocol, in the abattoir, cull animals as part of normal animal husbandry procedures), AND
• The animal is not bred specifically for the second researcher, AND
• The animal is killed ONLY by a person authorised to do so (eg. under a current Animal Research Authority, because of the nature of their employment etc), AND
• The researcher has no input into the treatment or handling of the animal prior to its euthanasia or death, AND
• The researcher has no input into the manner of euthanasia of the animal, or the timing of its euthanasia, AND
• The tissue is collected AFTER death of the animal is confirmed. The researcher may be present when the animal is killed and may remove tissues from the animal; OR the animal tissue is removed by the person authorised to euthanase the animal and passed onto the researcher; OR the whole animal carcass may be passed onto the researcher.