Strong Welfare equals Healthy Animals

Since the introduction of the 3 R’s under The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 White Antibodies has made huge progress in REDUCING the number of animals used for the Production of Antisera and Normal Serum.

Strong Welfare and healthy animals is the cornerstone of our business.

White Antibodies have a proven track record of providing stimulating environments for all the animals under our care. The thought process is simple; strong, healthy, purpose bred animals equals robust immune systems.

Working under The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK we have made huge progress since the introduction of the 3 R’s (Refinement, Replacement & Reduction)

We have a programme of work that is making a real difference to Welfare & Reducing Animal use.

RABBITS

The preferred housing of our rabbits is the group floor penning approach, animals are socialised at the youngest age possible to form hierarchy within each group. Enrichment is provided in the form of play tunnels and houses to allow privacy and refuge. Fresh Hay is provided at all times in addition to a pelleted feed.

Our historical data (collected over 30 years) shows a clear scientific advantage to floor pen, group housed rabbits, animals respond more readily to a wide range of bacterial and peptide antigens and provide larger volumes of serum.

SHEEP

The current plan of work uses purpose bred animals that produce larger volumes of serum and bacteria antigens due to their size & weight.

The majority of available adult sheep peak at 60 – 80kgs, our current in house breeding programme uses the larger breeds of sheep in the range of 100-150kgs crossed with the more muscular breeds to produce an antisera model that reduces the overall use of animals, serum output has been increased by up to 45%.

It is expected that Interbreeding of our foundation sheep breeds will result in heterosis or hybrid vigour, the resultant offspring may have higher performance in reproduction, survival and fitness traits, one of these traits we will be investigating is an increased range of T-cell activation and the ability of the animal to respond to a greater range of antigens.

The use of purpose bred rabbits peaking at double standard weights have led to 40-50% deduction in animal use for both serum and antigen production.

New Novel Serum extraction techniques in the Laboratory for the maximisation of serum yields have further Reduced animal use, this has been achieved by the use of techniques to further extract more serum during the clotting process.
Welfare is at the heart of our business, for any enquiries you may have, please feel free to get in touch
Since the introduction of the 3 R’s under The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986
White Antibodies has made huge progress in REFINEMENT of procedures used for the
Production of Antisera, Normal Serum and Antigens.
The use of alternative adjuvants (along with route / volume), novel coupling agents (to improve antigenicity) and novel preparation of antigen (e.g. sonication of bacterial cells to expose antigen) will be encouraged with the overall objective to reduce the number and or volume of injections consistent with achieving the overall objective.
Clients developing new products will be encouraged to consider other species – it may be appropriate to use sheep and goats instead of rabbits for some antisera production especially where larger volumes of antisera are required.
Our procedures involve a variety of local and general anaesthesia combinations used to refine the blood sampling or to improve the antigen administration is a an ongoing initiative.

Refinement Initiatives that Exceed Expectations