Share thisAn interview with Jann Hau about the University of Copenhagen’s laboratory animal research infrastructure
A recently-completed laboratory animal research infrastructure allows up to 1,000 scientists to move quickly from concept to experiment, bypassing the traditional steps of identifying facilities and finding the funding to tailor experimental conditions.
The state-of-the-art facility, which houses the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Experimental Medicine, aims to provide a more efficient route to research that involves sophisticated animal models and advanced technology—especially studies such as those involving gene-modified mice which play a central role in translational medicine.
Jann Hau, Dr Med, Professor in Comparative Medicine and Experimental Medicine’s Chairman, oversaw design and development of the new facilities. ALN World™ Contributing Editor, Helen Kelly spoke with Dr. Hau about the facility’s key features, lessons learned in the course of designing and building the facility, and what the future holds in terms of scientists’ needs for animal-based technology and research infrastructure.
Helen Kelly: This refurbishment took more than five years and €15 million to realise. What benefit does it offer the laboratory animal research community?
Jan Hau: Any scientist with sufficient funding will be able to test a hypothesis in advanced animal studies. Consider a clinical scientist who holds a hypothesis that a specific receptor or protein is involved in a human disease mechanism. She could contact us and ask for a mouse strain whose gene receptor for this protein is knocked out. And, she won’t need to establish a big research group to run the experiment; our licensed technicians, veterinarians, and core facility experts can run the study for her.
We hope that our infrastructure will help to close the gap between what scientists might learn and what conventional practices allow them to investigate.