1.

0 Introduction

1.1 History of Laboratory Animal Facility and Management Faculty of Pharmacy Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) was operated at Puncak Alam Campus since 1st June 2009. By approving the abilities and facilities provided in the new campus, UiTMs Top Management was appointed Faculty of Pharmacy to manage and maintain an animal house which is known Laboratory Animal Facility and Management (LAFAM). This complex animal house was established in the year 2010 a few months after Faculty of pharmacy was launched. This animal house will be used especially by the researches of UiTMs academic staffs and research laboratory staffs in their research projects. The animal house itself consist of four storey building and was a building with special design, which provides proper controlled environments for the care and maintenance of experimental animals. Facilities provided are complex, expensive to build and difficult to operate, but are vital to the support of a proper, safe, and humane research effort. Lastly, it is also the first Animal Complex in Malaysia that planned to practice a Good Laboratory Practice/ Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (GLP/AAALAC). 1.2 Objectives of LAFAM Objectives of why LAFAM establish in UiTM are as followed: 1. To make sure this animal house practices a Good Laboratory Practice/ Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (GLP/AAALAC). 2. To provide a better place to accommodate exquisitely controlled environments for the care and maintenance of experimental animals. 3. To breed experimental animals to cater the facultys need (for research, teaching and practical sessions for both students and lecturer). 4. To promote and enhance collaborations in research with other researchers outside UiTM

2.0 The Facility Dean Prof. Dr. Aishah Adam

LABORATORY ANIMAL FACILITY AND MANAGEMENT COORDINATOR Dr. John Shia Kwong Siew

SCIENCE OFFICER En. Mohd Alimukhti Mansor

VETERINER OFFICER Dr. Zulkefle Nizam

VETERINER ASSISTANT En. Abdul Halim Tormizi En. Mohamad Bashir Yaacob Mrs. Nurlin Shafarah Md. Jaafar Mrs. Nurul Aini Baharom Ms. Nur Hidayah Husin

Figure 1: Organizational chart of Laboratory Animal Facility and Management (LAFAM)

UiTMs Faculty of Pharmacy is very committed on research and development on new medicine. Currently more than 10 laboratories are assigned as research laboratories, culminating in the establishment of a research wing for pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical and nutraceutical discovery. The wing consists of 4 major laboratories that, in collaborative manner, perform the whole series of the drug discovery process from extraction and synthesis, to bioassay and formulations. LAFAM is one of the laboratories under the

supervision of Faculty of Pharmacy. This four storey building is an animal house built for research purpose. For the time being only three levels used where the first floor used mainly for breeding while the second and third levels for research activities. Currently, only mouse (BL6 and ICR), rats (Sprague dawley and Wistar) and rabbit are breed at LAFAM. Their future planning is to breed monkeys (primates) for research purpose as well. Basically, LAFAM is using Individual Ventilator Cage (IVC) system which provides all the animals with clean air. Since the place is a closed area, each individual cage will have its own air supply. IVC system has become an attractive housing regime of laboratory rodents. It has become the best choice since this system was reported to have a high degree of containment combined with relative ease of handling and a high degree of protection from allergens. Some reasons or factors why IVC is more preferable because it has been recognized having protective value of the filter-top avoiding the negative consequences arising from the lack of effective ventilation (Hoglund and Renstrom et al., 2001). Another factor is the demand from researchers to have access to their animals, while keeping them isolated. Several studies have shown that IVC systems minimize the spread of pathogens between cages (Clough et al., 1995, Morrel et al., 1997). LAFAM is currently monitored by five veterinar assistants whom in charge of feeding the animals, changing their bedding, keeping an eye on their reproduction process and monitoring the whole development of the animals. Based on the information given by the veterinar assistant, female rats can get pregnant when they are 5 to 6 weeks of age. The pregnancy period will be within 3 weeks and after that period they will give birth to litters. Another 3 weeks take for the litter to stay with their mother for breast feeding. Then they will be place in separate cages for growth. The adult rats will be used to breed at most of 6 times as their productivity will start decreasing after that period. The one which is no longer useful will be discarded. The right ethics do not allow the killing of rats using diethyl ether since

this chemical will cause the rats to suffer more. Thus, killing using CO2 chamber is more
preferable method.

2.1 Why animal use in research is necessary Before many drugs and cosmetics are tested on humans or released for human consumption, they are usually tested on animals. Many people are opposed to testing on animals while many others are for it. Well, scientifically human safety must come first and that it takes animals testing as a first step in ensuring human safety. Taking a quick glance on this topic, each party who support and oppose the use of animal for scientific research have their own reasons. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that scientific research as for now is a difficult process. Human body is the most complex machine yet encountered trillions of cells. Each performs their own task precisely. Scientific researchers need to come out with tools which capable of mimicking this level of complexity. However, without the ability to use animals in research, scientists effort would be massively hampered not only in the development of new treatments, but also in the fundamental research which unpins all science knowledge. Besides, most researches in the past that using animals has its own benefit for animals. Most drugs used by veterinar are originally for human. Furthermore, since virus and bacteria have the ability to mutate and infect other target instead of the primary target cell, thus; most of the drugs can also be tested and used back for animals. A report published in University World News noted that the commissions scientific committee on health and environmental risks found no valid scientific reasons to support a discontinuation of the use of primates and other animals in research or in the development and testing of new drugs.

3.0 Alternative method to animal testing in research Some scientist has comes with numbers alternative method in regard to the use of animal in science research. Some of those that has been used widely is the In-vitro method,

3.1 In-vitro method In-vitro can be defined as a biological process where a substance is being grown in a test tube provided with an artificial environment. This is opposite to the in-vivo since in-vivo involved biological processes that occur within a living organism. Nowadays, scientists have been struggled to find a new approached in animal testing. As not to torture the animal for scientific research they have recommend in-vitro technique in replace for the animal testing. The advantage of using this in-vitro technique is that it does not involve living organisms, and the environment to grow their subject of experiment can be controlled or manipulated. This in-vitro study can be used to test for anti-cancer, vaccines, and antibiotics. There is so called in-vitro genetic research exists. This research is mainly on isolating specific marker, genes and proteins that is associated with the Alzheimers disease, muscular dystrophy, schizophrenia and others. This is all an example of disease that involved the human nervous system. By using this in-vitro genetic technique the animal testing can be avoided. Using animal for research purposes can be very cruel as this animal will be sacrifice at the end of the day for its organs. Using animal test will only put the animal in pain and distress and worsen when the research failed. The researcher will start a new experiment and hence another animal or the same type of animal will be used again. It is quite sad knowing that this animal was being used bluntly as the outcome of the experiment cannot be achieved. Thus it would be better if the researchers are able to use in-vitro technique for research as there is some evidence saying that in-vitro study have a potential in providing more rapid, precise an relevant information than in some animal studies.

3.2 Computer modeling and stimulation Usually after rodents like mice or rat are used in a test, a substance is tested again on a larger animal such as mammal or primates. However with the use of computer modeling can change this situation as fewer tests will be conducted on animals. The toxic effect of substance usually done on an animal but due to the technology development, todays scientists are able to use computer modeling to see the effect of this toxic on live tissues. By combining

the

knowledge

on

molecular

biology,

biochemistry

and

analytical

pharmacology, scientist able to study human genes and how drugs affect those genes or protein that they make. If there was an abundance of human genes information, thus there was no used in conducting experiment on animal since the human genes can shows more reliable information. In addition, computer stimulation can calculate the absorption, distribution and metabolisms of the substance in the body. In addition, for computer modeling to have its effects, the programmer must program the computer model to reflect the physiology of the animal. In the other hand, the innovation of scanning machines such as MRI which comprise of fMRI, PET and CT make us able to isolate abnormalities in the brains of patients with schizophrenia and other disorders. It also allow scientist or researcher to scan alive human brain to see how certain part of the brain light up under certain condition which will give a picture about how this part of the brain control different aspect of human bodies. Using scanning alone is not enough since it need to be complement with the knowledge at genetic and molecular level of how it affects the whole bodies. For an example, the result of Parkinsons disease can be seen through scanning but it needs genetic study to see which gene cause the disease. Hence, the studies need to complement each other so that their structure and function can be understood. 3.3 Micro-dosing Micro-dosing can also be used to reduce the number of using animal for a test. Micro-dosing is a technique where small doses of drugs are being administered inside the human body. Although this technique is unlikely to produce prompt body effect, it is enough to study the cellular responses toward the drugs. 4.0 Conclusion Using animal as a subject for an experiment can be quiet expensive. This is because these animal need to be feed and nurse by the welfare technician and the veterinarians. In comparison, non animal test is sometimes a lot cheaper and desired result can also be obtained depending on the research objective. Sometimes, some researches require the use of alive specimen and of course this will need the use of large animals which

resemble human, for example is the use of primates in brain research. Since primates brain is indeed quite similar to that of human, thus; sometimes, researcher will have to use this animal to get the right result. However, all of these alternatives discussed earlier are also possible to be use so that the number of animal use as subject can be reduced.

REFERENCES A. U. Hoglund and A. Renstrom (2001). Evaluation of individually ventilated cage system for laboratory rodents: cage environment and animal health aspects. Laboratory Animals,(35), 51-57. Clough, G., Wallace, J., Gamble, M. R., Merryweather, E. R. and Bailey, E. (1995). A positive, individually ventilated caging system: a local barrier system to protect both animals and personnel. Laboratory Animals, (29), 139-151. Morrel, J. M. (1997). Efficacy of mini-containment units in isolating mice from microOrganisms. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science, (24), 191-199. Retrieved on 27th April 2012 http://ecvam.jrc.it/ft_doc/IHCP_leaflet_Ecvam%20final.pdf Retrieved on 27th April 2012 http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/cosmetic_testing/facts/alternatives_animal_tests.html Retrieved on 27th April 2012 http://www.geari.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing.html Retrieved on 27th April 2012 http://altweb.jhsph.edu/news/current/immuneassays.html