Guest guest Posted July 23, 2001 Report Share Posted July 23, 2001 China Daily http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2001-07-23/21592.html (CHANG TIANLE) 07/23/2001 SHANGHAI: China's largest laboratory-animal breeding centre has been built in Shanghai and is expected to produce more than 300,000 mice and rats for laboratory use each year. The Shanghai Laboratory Animals Centre (SLAC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has invested more than 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million) in the centre's first phase infrastructure and equipment. It will cover an area of 44,667 square metres in Songjiang County, Shanghai. The centre will focus on the research, exploitation, maintenance and breeding of high quality laboratory animals for biomedical research. It will also provide training courses and basic data on laboratory animals. " By only using animals that are bred and raised according to internationally recognized standards, can scientists get correct research results. So the quality of a country's laboratory animals are of crucial importance to its scientific research, " said Xu Ping, director of the centre. The centre consists of 3,000-square-metre barrier system facilities for Specific-Pathogen-Free mice and rats, a gametes cryopreservation lab, a monitoring lab and a lab for genetically manipulated mice, which are all being built and equipped according to international standards. All the mice will be bred in a disease-free environment, with mutations transferred into genetically standardized strains, and preserved by freezing their embryos in liquid nitrogen. SLAC has accepted more than 40 rodent strains and will introduce 60 more in the next three years. " We aim to join the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International in three years, which has more than 800 members all over the world, but none in China, " Xu said. The centre will also concentrate on the welfare of laboratory animals. " We adopt a Three-R policy, reduction, refinement and replacement, which is to say, great efforts will be made to reduce the number of laboratory animals used, improve their living conditions and use lower forms of life instead of rats and mice for research, " Xu said. " They sacrifice their lives for human beings and it is our duty to treat them as well as possible. " SLAC will set up a gravestone in memory of the laboratory animals in the yard in front of the lab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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