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NC3Rs-funded technology wins international award

Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas with her award for Winner of the 2018 Global 3Rs

The Consortium for Innovation and Quality in Pharmaceutical Development (IQ) and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC) have announced the winners of their Global 3Rs Awards 2018.

The awards programme recognises recent research papers which make significant innovative contributions towards the 3Rs.

Awards of $5,000 (USD) each were presented in three categories (North America, Europe, Pacific Rim) during the 69th National Meeting of the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS) in Baltimore, Maryland.

Winner of the 2018 Global 3Rs Award for Europe is Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas, for the research paper ‘TaiNi: Maximizing research output whilst improving animals’ welfare in neurophysiology experiments’. TaiNi is an ultra lightweight system for recording neural activity in the brains of mice that avoids many of the welfare concerns associated with existing approaches. The device has been developed by Professor Rodriguez-Villegas and her team at Imperial College London in collaboration with pharmaceutical company Lilly’s UK research labs and with funding from the NC3Rs open innovation programme CRACK IT Challenges.

"It is an honour to receive this prestigious 3Rs global award, as a recognition of the impact TaiNi is having on animals' welfare and the scientific community. We now hope that the system is widely adopted by labs around the world so that more animals can benefit from it."

Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas

For more information on the award and winners in other categories, visit the AAALAC website.

More information about the TaiNi device can be found on our website: New device for refined neural recording in mice could transform dementia research.