Education and training on alternative methods to animal experiments
The staff of ZEBET – the “Centre for the Documentation and Evaluation of Alternatives to Animal Experiments” at BfR – participates in the continuing education of scientists from different biomedical disciplines in the field of alternatives to animal experiments.
The German Animal Welfare Act requires expert knowledge on animal experiments including all aspects of animal protection for scientists who intend to conduct an animal experiment.
Continuing education course
In co-operation with the Berlin-based universities and the Berlin Land Agency for Health and Social Affairs (LaGeSo) ZEBET developed a continuing education course entitled “Laboratory Animals, Animal Experiments and Alternative Methods” in 1992. A successful participation in this course in Berlin is a prerequisite to the approval of an application for animal experiments. In the meantime, all federal state authorities demand expert knowledge for scientists who conduct animal experiments. For this reason the course has been highly successful, also in Austria and Switzerland and is now offered as a regular semester course at the Freie Universitaet Berlin. Moreover, it is available on a monthly basis as a commercial training programme (also in English).
The course is certified by the German Society for Laboratory Animal Science (GV-SOLAS) and is carried out in accordance with the Guidelines of the European Federation of Laboratory Animals Science Associations FELASA and EU Directive 86/609/EEC.
The course is offered within the framework of the seminar series „berliner kompaktkurse“ of the Berlin Continuing Education scheme. The courses are offered under the responsibility of PD Dr. Christian Große-Siestrup, Charité Berlin and Prof. Dr. Horst Spielmann, Freie Universitaet Berlin.
