Knowing how animals will react to pathogens or to windmills in the sea, knowing which fish live where without having to catch them, detecting more quickly that an animal is in pain... but without animal testing. These are just some of the results that we can achieve by using innovative tools and techniques in our research into and with animals. You can read about it in the online magazine that Ernst van den Ende (Managing Director Animal Sciences Group) offered to Sjoukje Heimovaara (Chairman of the Executive Board) of Wageningen University & Research this week.
The Animal Sciences Group (ASG) of Wageningen University & Research has been researching animals for decades: their behaviour and biology and their role in food production and biodiversity, animal diseases and animal life under and above water. Managing Director Ernst van den Ende: "The changing challenges in society mean that within the Animal Sciences Group and WUR as a whole, we are thinking about the question: what is the role of animals in the food system, in nature and with regard to human well-being? And we translate this into our research. New techniques such as sensors, artificial intelligence and organoids offer plenty of opportunities to implement innovations in animal research, and we are investing heavily in this."
Less animal testing and better predictions
In many cases, the new techniques and tools can ensure a future with less, or less invasive animal testing. But also a future in which we are able to better foresee the effect of, for example, a wind farm on the bird population, and in which we will know where and how endangered species live, or how much stress animals experience under certain circumstances. Sjoukje Heimovaraa, Chairman of the Executive Board of WUR: "Animals are essential for biodiversity and for a sustainable future. Knowledge about animals is also extremely important for a sustainable food system, where we see that the issues within the Netherlands are very different from those at an international level. This kind of research helps us to find solutions and I am proud that we at WUR are doing this kind of innovative research."
With the magazine, WUR wants to inform and inspire collaboration partners, and also show the people behind the research who work so hard to create a sustainable future for humans and animals.
