New funding rules to address UK's animal experiment issues

The research councils responsible for channeling government funding to scientists have changed their guidelines for animal experiments, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Journal Nature.

The report said that new rules require applicants to provide detailed statistics about their experiments, in order to improve research quality.

The new guidelines are aimed at mostly medical researches, which use mice and rats to test new drugs before trials are conducted on human. But, nowadays, many researchers tend to use a small sample of animals to carry out their experiments, which might not be accurate enough to uphold the research results.

The funding agencies, including the Research Councils UK, said applicants who failed to provide statistically robust results will not be granted any funds.

The problem is not limited to Britain. Scholars in the U.S. have warned about such issues last year.

Malcolm Macleod, a neuroscientist at the University of Edinburgh, said the cause of such issues is mainly due to a lack of training and support in experimental design, and limited funds.

Given the situation, some of the scientists proposed that linking up researchers working on similar topics might help solve the issues. Endit