Online marketplace for animal samples could cut waste and save lives

Every year, millions of tissue and organ samples from animal experiments go to waste, left forgotten in the back of lab freezers or destroyed to free up space. Scientists in Spain are hoping a new online tool could help. Called aRukon and set to launch globally this year, the virtual marketplace will allow researchers to sell unused animal samples to other labs, potentially cutting waste and saving animal lives. Lluís Montoliu, a geneticist and vice director of the National Center for Biotechnology, is optimistic about the plan. A member of the committee for transparency in animal experimentation at the Confederation of Scientific Societies of Spain, he wasn’t involved with aRukon but has long advocated for ways to reduce animal use and waste in labs or study centers. “The scientific community needs to question why such a system wasn’t in place earlier,” he says. aRukon is the brainchild of Javier Burgos, a biomedical researcher at Jaume I University. He says 20 years of researching neurogenerative diseases taught him just how “tedious, complicated, and expensive” animal experiments can be. And a lot of his hard work is ultimately tossed out, even though, Burgos says, it could be of use to other researchers studying the same devastating diseases. “I have often found myself in front of an open freezer, faced with the challenging decision of determining which samples to discard,” he says. “Panic sets in when the freezer reaches full capacity.” ...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news