Globally, millions of fishes are used in laboratories and they are the second most popular model used in regulated procedures in the European Union, with approximately 60,000 used in Sweden annually. While it is common to use anaesthesia during procedures that span the full range of severities including highly invasive surgery, analgesia (pain-relief) is not routinely provided, which is a welfare issue for fish used in research. The project aims to address a key question to improve the welfare of fish in research: how to refine invasive experiments by employing pain-relief?
This project will investigate:
- The impact of a range of pain-relieving drugs on both larval and adult fish to identify which drugs, and at what doses, are effective in providing pain-relief.
- Which drugs prevent pain-related behavioural and physiological responses.
- The effects of these drugs on data collection to assess any confounding effects.
- Pharmacokinetics will assist in determining when to re-administer analgesia and help provide pain management protocols.
This project is a crucial step in refining experiments using fish on a global scale. Employing analgesia during invasive techniques represents a major step forward in improving experimental fish welfare as well as potentially reducing the severity of a large number of procedures.
Deadline 24th April 2023. Please apply through the website: