Responsible Research in Planning for Animal Experiments - A Mini Review

Animal experiments are routinely carried out worldwide either in educational setups or in research setups. Animal research can be basic or applied, where in the applied research the test compound/drug is tested in animals for its safety and efficacy before going into clinical trials. Planning for conducting in vivo animal experiments requires certain preliminary behind-the-scene preparations. These background preparations form the foundation for a valid and reproducible animal experiment. But often these background preparations are overlooked while planning for experiments leading to poor quality, translatability and reproducibility of animal studies. Even though many reporting guidelines are available, there is very little guidance on how to plan for animal experiments. Without better planning, better reporting is not going to help in producing valid research results. Better Planning, careful execution and proper reporting are all essential for good research. Hence, this paper discusses about the steps to follow while planning an animal experiment to produce a valid, reproducible and translatable results known as responsible research.