3Rs Approach (Replace, Reduce and Refine Animal Models) to Improve Preclinical Research, Volume II

This is the second volume of our previous Research Topic, "3Rs Approach (Replace, Reduce and Refine Animal Models) to Improve Preclinical Research". Feel free to check out the first volume here:

3Rs Approach (Replace, Reduce and Refine Animal Models) to Improve Preclinical Research

The principles of 3R’s were developed more than 50 years ago to improve welfare of animals used in research. During the last decades it became synonymous with high quality standards of in vivo procedures and has created an interesting research in the field of bioengineering. In fact, new artificial devices, developed to reduce the number of animals needed for research, are proving to bridge a gap that has so far existed between in vivo procedures and classic Petri-dish cell cultures. Biomedical research needs solid experimental models and 3R’s “approach”, by developing new methods and refining the existing ones, gives an important contribution to this improvement. Pain and stress management in laboratory animals (Refinement-Reduction) and next-generation in vitro tools development and use (Reduction-future Replacement) represent the application of these principles in preclinical research.

The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together the most recent and advanced work on the 3R’s methods in order to share information that can help spread a 3R’s approach to preclinical research. It is known that pain and stress can affect homeostasis creating suffering in animals and increasing the risk of bias. Also, many relevant questions cannot be addressed with the only use of laboratory animals or cell cultures on a Petri dish. A collection of papers describing advances in reducing pain and stress in laboratory animals as well as studies on next generation invitro tools can be extremely useful to biomedical researchers.

Authors are encouraged to send manuscripts, both research articles and reviews, on the following themes:

• Laboratory animals’ behavior: normal vs abnormal behaviors

• Laboratory animals’ handlings and standard Animal Facility procedures

• Laboratory animals’ analgesia and pain management

• Laboratory animals’ stress management

• Strategies to reduce the number of animals used for a specific research (including meta-analysis)

• Studies on/with: organ-on-a-chip technologies, bioreactors, milli- and micro-fluidic systems, 3D cell cultures, advanced co-cultures procedures, 3D organoid cultures

• Studies using both in vivo procedures and next generation in vitro tools to address a specific physiopathological question

Please know that abstract submission is not required, interested contributors are welcome to submit their manuscript without submitting an abstract beforehand.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: 3Rs Approach, Preclinical Research, Animal Welfare, Pain and Stress Management, In Vitro Tools, Organ-on-a-Chip, Biomedical Research

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.