Graduate School of health and Medical Sciences

Designing and succeeding with animal experiment
Provider: Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Activity no.: 3120-25-00-00	There are 12 available seats
	Enrollment deadline: 09/05/2025

Date and time	16.06.2025, at: 00:00 - 03.09.2025, at: 16:00
Regular seats	12
Course fee	10,800.00 kr.
Lecturers	Pernille Tveden-Nyborg
ECTS credits	6.00

Contact person	Maja-Louise Beck Nielsen E-mail address: mlbn@sund.ku.dk

Enrolment Handling/Course Organiser	PhD administration E-mail address: phdkursus@sund.ku.dk

Aim and content Seats for this course are reserved for PhD students at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences at UCPH. Anyone can apply for the course, but if you are not a PhD student at the Graduate School, you will be placed on the waiting list until enrollment deadline. After the enrolment deadline, available seats will be allocated to the waiting list. The course is free of charge for PhD students at Danish universities (except Copenhagen Business School), and for PhD students at NorDoc member faculties. All other participants must pay the course fee. Learning objectives A student who has met the objectives of the course will be able to: 1. Discuss sources of variation, reproducibility and predictability in animal experiments 2. Explain how different factors may influence the outcome of an animal experiment 3. Understand how to reduce variation and bias when planning an animal experiment 4. Describe how a relevant group size for an animal experiment can be calculated 5. Reflect on potential challenges when translating findings from animal experiments to humans Content Experimental research in animals is justified due to its expected predictability of conditions in other species, often aiming to humans as the final target-species. However, within the same species and even within the same strain or substrain of a species, the variation can be surprisingly large with serious consequences for the obtained results and subsequent conclusions. This phenotypic variation is not only ruled by individual genotype, but also by environmental factors such as housing conditions, feeding and microbiological status, that may go unnoticed. Hence, effects from various sources may influence and compromise the outcome of an animal experiment. In turn, this can lead to contradictory results and impair the reproducibility and validity of the obtained data. This course will highlight factors that are critical for variation and thereby for the reproducibility and predictability in experimental research in animals. The factors are many and some are more important than others, and may vary with the design and end-points of the study. In this regard the course cannot cover all possible sources of variation, but will focus on selected key factors and their putative effects to exemplify the consequences e.g. on experimental design and validity of data. It is the responsibility of the scientists to prioritize and consider these factors in order to produce data that offer minimal experimental variation and maximal reproducibility. Taking this responsibility seriously will not only improve the design and results of an animal study, but is also in accordance with the ethical obligation to gain as much information as possible whenever animals are used for scientific purposes. The overall aim is to enable course participants to assess the potential pitfalls and shortcomings of animal experiments, hereby improving their ability to make informed decisions on the design and execution of a study and increasing the success rate of valid findings. Covered topics include: • Design of animal experiments • Validity of animal experiments and model application • Sources of variation: Factors related to the animal • Sources of variation: Factors related to the environment • Sources of variation: Experimental factors • Aspects relating to the translation of findings from animal to human (i.e., in drug development) Participants The course is relevant for students with a veterinary, medical or natural science degree planning to do animal experiments or enrolled in the Preclinical In Vivo Research PhD programme. It is an advantage to have passed the Laboratory animal science course or equivalent. It is advised - but not a preequisite - to attend the course prior to engaging in the planning of large scale of in vivo studies. Relevance to graduate programmes The course is relevant to all PhD students engaged in performing animal experiments. This also includes the following graduate programmes at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences, UCPH: Preclinical In Vivo Research Pharmaceutical Sciences (Drug Research Academy) Molecular Mechanisms of Disease Language English Form Lectures, discussions and occasional smaller cases in plenum. In addition to the course lecturers, participants are expected to devote time for reading the course material in order to prepare for the course and exam. It is a requirement to prepare a poster with a preclinical in vivo research perspective, e.g., with findings from own animal experiment or expected findings and proposed design of a future study. This is part of the course exam and all course participants must present their poster and engage actively in evaluating fellow student’s work. The course is completed when passing the poster presentation, peer evaluation, and the final oral exam. Course director Assoc. prof. Pernille Tveden-Nyborg, Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Frederiksberg Campus, KU-SUND, E-mail: ptn@sund.ku.dk Teachers Teachers from both academia and (pharmaceutical) industry. See programme. Dates The 16-20th of June (week 25): course lectures The 2- 3rd of September: poster presentations and oral exam, respectively. Course location Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Frederiksberg Campus, University of Copenhagen “Stalden”, Ridebanevej 6, 1st floor Registration Please register before the 9th of May Expected frequency Recurrent course; once yearly in June. Seats to PhD students from other Danish universities will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and according to the applicable rules. Applications from other participants will be considered after the last day of enrolment. Note: All applicants are asked to submit invoice details in case of no-show, late cancellation or obligation to pay the course fee (typically non-PhD students). If you are a PhD student, your participation in the course must be in agreement with your principal supervisor.

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