Main description:

This highly-readable text provides grounds on how to plan and conduct animal experiments that can be reproduced by others. The book touches on factors that may impact the reproducibility of animal studies including: the animal genetic background, the animal microbial flora, environmental and physiological variables affecting the animal, animal welfare, statistics and experimental design, systematic reviews of animal studies, and the publishing process.

The book addresses advanced undergraduates, graduate students and all scientists working with animals.

Contents:

1. An introduction to reproducibility in the context of animal research

2. Rodent Genetics

2.1. Introduction to Mendelian genetics and genomics

2.2. Standardized strains of laboratory rodents

2.3. Genetically altered (GA) rodents

2.4. Genetic quality control for mice and rats

2.5. Mouse and rat phenomics

3. Animal and environmental factors that influence reproducibility

4. Microbiology and Microbiome

5. Effects of untreated pain, anesthesia and analgesia in animal experimentation

6. Why do we need a statistical experiment design?

7. Statistical tests and Sample size calculations

8. Design of experiments

9. Scholarly Publishing and Scientific Reproducibility

10. Systematic reviews

11. Planning animal experiments