Unfortunately, today’s scientific challenges, such as the development and set-up of in vitro methods, still require the use of animal organs and tissues, for which animals need to be killed. 

Through this webpage, BCLAS aims to provide information to promote the sharing of laboratory animals for organs and tissues between researchers. By combining multiple procedures on the same animal, or by using animals that have to be humanely killed for another reason, the number of animals for the collection of organs/tissues can be limited. In this way, an active contribution can be made to the 3Rs principle, and more specifically, to the reduction of the number of animals for scientific research. 

Click on the following links to find out more:

1 I’m looking for organs/tissues

2 I have cadavers or organs/tissues available that I would like to share with other researchers

3 I would like to pay a fair compensation for the help I received to obtain organs/tissues

4 What rules must be followed when transporting organs/tissues

A What regulations regarding animal by-products must be followed to donate carcasses of small laboratory animals to establishments such as zoos or shelters for feeding to carnivores?

B What regulations regarding animal by-products must be followed to donate carcasses of small laboratory animals such as rodents to schools for use in an anatomy lesson?

1. I am looking for organs/tissues

Search within your own institute 

A survey in 2024 showed that several institutes are using (or planning to us) software applications, and/or already have informal channels through which researchers can come in touch with researchers from other departments who plan humane killing of animals and on which occasion organs or tissues can be obtained.  

If you are not aware of the established channels in your institute for sharing animals for the collection of organs/tissues, please contact the department within your institution that is responsible for animal management, e.g. the person responsible for the coordination of laboratory animal orders or the laboratory director. The expert in charge of supervising the health and welfare of the animals (the veterinarian), or the person in charge of the animal welfare body, is also undoubtedly aware of which animal species are used within the institute and can put you in touch with the departments and staff who can help you with obtaining organs/tissues of animals that need to be killed for this or another reason.  

Institutions that want to set up a formal internal platform for sharing animals for organs/tissues are advised to check with their provider of the animal management software package whether a module in that context is already available. This is for instance the case for Tick@lab (Laboratory Animal Management Software program of a-tune) which offers a standard 3R blackboard where users can exchange surplus animals, organs and tissues (and if desired even with users from Tick@lab outside the institute). 

If the institution is looking for a specifically developed application to share animals independent of existing internal software packages, it may be useful to investigate the following web services. 

  • The free web service anishare has been developed and is made available by Leibniz Institute for Ageing Research. This tool offers the possibility to create a database of animals available for reuse and provides an easy way to ‘claim’ animals with automatic generation of email messages, as well as an RSS feed for updates. We recommend to first contact your IT department to verify whether you are allowed to use this free web application in accordance with your company policy. 
  • You can also look at PICOTEAM’s digital sharing platform. This platform facilitates sharing of surplus animals and biological materials within laboratories of an organisation or between institutions to reduce the number of animals used in scientific experiments. More info: https://www.picoteam.dk/service/animal-sharing-platform/ 

 

Search outside your own institute 

 

BCLAS has identified three ways in which researchers could obtain organs/tissues from external parties.  

 

1. Register at and use a web service that offers a formal platform for the exchange of organs/tissues between institutes. Most platforms allow researchers to search in a database for materials uploaded by other researchers. A disadvantage of these systems is that the researcher does not have the possibility to launch a question for specific animals/organs/tissues, it is only possible to subscribe to animals/organs/tissues that are offered by another researcher. BCLAS advises to first seek advice regarding the internal requirements and policies applicable within your institution before joining network initiatives intended for the exchange of organs or tissues. 

 

  • An example of a platform within Europe that can be used by researchers in Belgium is ANIMATCH. Note, it is important to appoint a coordinator within each institute to manage the access of internal researchers to ANIMATCH. After registration, AniMatch allows scientists to post available animals or tissues, or search for offers by others. To publish an offer, the providing party provides data such as species, type, genetic background, as well as number, age and sex of the animal. Furthermore, the organ or tissue removed by the provider for his own purpose and a timeframe for the humane killing is given. The seeking party can search and filter the database for the required number organs/tissues from the desired species. In case of a successful match, the seeker can send a request. In turn, contact information is sent to both parties who are then able to arrange the details of the transfer. More info: https://www.animatch.eu/ 
  • You can also look at PICOTEAM’s digital sharing platform. This platform facilitates sharing of surplus animals and biological materials within laboratories of an organisation or between institutions to reduce the number of animals used in scientific experiments. More info: https://www.picoteam.dk/service/animal-sharing-platform/ 

 

2. (for BCLAS members) If you have a request for specific tissues/organs and you are looking for a possibility to use animals e.g. that will have to be killed in the context of another experiment, or surplus animals from breeding, then you can launch such a question on the BCLAS Forum – BCLAS. You choose how you phrase the question and what level of detail you want to share.  

By default, all active BCLAS members will receive the question posted on the forum in their mailbox. Members do have the option to change their settings for the forum if they only want to read the posts when they log in.  

Through the forum, a question for organs/tissues is widely disseminated in the lab animal community in Belgium and there is a very good chance that a suitable match can be found. If a BCLAS member wants to help fulfil a request, they can either answer via the forum or directly to the requester provided that the requester provided his/her contact details. 

 

3. Another way to obtain specific organs/tissues that has proven useful for years is to contact your own laboratory director, laboratory animal expert (veterinarian) or person in charge of the (overarching) animal welfare body. These people usually have an extensive network in their own organization and beyond (e.g. via the BCLAS board, BCLAS live, BENAWB, …) enabling them to put you in touch with researchers from other institutes who work with the species of interest. 

2. I have cadavers or organs/tissues available that I would like to share with other researchers

If it is not clear to you how you can make it known within your own institute that you have animals/organs/tissues available, please contact the department within your institution that is responsible for animal laboratory management, e.g. the person responsible for the coordination of animal orders or the laboratory director. The expert in charge of supervising the health and welfare of the animals (the veterinarian), or the person in charge of the animal welfare unit, is also undoubtedly aware of the channels used in the institution to identify other researchers who may be interested in the animals/organs/tissues available. These persons can also provide information about possible interested parties and about the internal policy rules that apply e.g. it could be that a contract first needs to be set up or there may be a policy regarding communication about laboratory animal use in the institute and how the availability of organs/tissues to the outside world should be communicated. 

 

How useful is it to actively search for a potential user for surplus animals you may have?  

  • Researchers who are looking for organs/tissues of animal species that are often bred or used in Belgian labs such as mice, rats, zebrafish, etc. will normally be able to obtain surplus animals relatively easily, so it may not be very satisfying to invest time and energy actively uploading such common laboratory animals into a database of an animal sharing platform for organs/tissues.  

Note: especially in facilities where (transgenic) animals are bred, there can be a considerable chance to obtain surplus animals, see also: Why animals are bred but not used in research | EARA. Such animals may still be suitable for collection of tissues/organs. The statistical data collected in Europe on the number of laboratory animals shows that more than 9 million laboratory animals are bred, but are not used in in vivo experiments every year (“bred but not used”).  There are no available figures  on the destination of such animals, or how many are used for collection of organs/tissues, but it can be assumed that the number of animals needed for collection of organs/tissues is much smaller than the number of animals bred but not used. It is important to highlight that part of the animals from transgenic breeding may have a specific genetic make-up, which means that their organs/tissues are not suitable for any scientific question or in vitro test that requires organs/tissues.  

        • Researchers may encounter greater difficulty in finding organs/tissues from less commonly available animal species/strains, such as primates, dogs, cats, or from specific transgenic lines. For these types of animals, availability is much smaller and efforts to ensure that other interested parties can sign up may be more rewarding. However, it seems most efficient to BCLAS that the party seeking organs takes the initiative to launch that request. Keep an eye out for posts on the BCLAS forum from researchers looking for such organs/tissues. For an overview of possible platforms where institutes can offer or launch requests to obtain animals/organs/carcasses, see LINK cfr. question 1.

3. I would like to pay a fair compensation for the help I received to obtain organs/tissues

Laboratories, the departments involved and/or the people who offer cadavers/organs/tissues usually make a deliberate moralistic choice to make these materials available to other researchers in order to reduce the number of animals needed for research and/or to help ensure that animals that need to be killed can still serve a meaningful scientific purpose so that the life and death of the animal was not in vain. 

As such, the providers of these materials will not expect any compensation for the materials and often not even for the time spent assisting with the humane killing, collection and possible shipment of the organs/tissues. Nevertheless, the work and resources that a laboratory spends on facilitating the donation of organs/tissues must be recognized. For example, if a lab is already going through a busy period, a request for organs/tissues can have further impact on the organization and the team involved. This risk is greatest in laboratories that work with less common animal species, which will therefore receive relatively more requests to share and help with collection of organs/tissues for others.  

For this reason, BCLAS advises 1) as the receiving party, to at least cover the transport costs and 2) to always ask the providing lab whether and form of compensation is appropriate for all support. Since it takes a lot of work and time, especially in larger organizations, to draw up a purchase order and invoice, there is generally not much enthusiasm on the part of either the recipient or the sender to provide a formal invoice for the help and organs/tissues offered. 

Often an informal small gift is provided. In this case, you may want to choose something that can be shared among the team that facilitated the collection of the organs/tissues, rather than a bottle of wine that is more difficult to distribute fairly.  

An alternative in which BCLAS can facilitate is the donation of a BCLAS 3R voucher, which can be given to the team that assisted with the donation/collection of tissues/organs and then entitles them to a discount when subscribing to a paying BCLAS training initiative, such as the annual symposium. This kind of compensation may be perceived as something very rewarding also by the management of the involved department as often budgets for training in an organization may be limited. 

4. What rules must be followed when transporting organs/tissues

In the first place, all regulations relating to biosafety must be followed which may require registers, correct packaging and appropriate accompanying documents in accordance with the biological risk level of the material. A useful overview of relevant biosecurity regulations can be found on the Belgian Biosafety Server |. 

In addition, there is an obligation to comply with the regulations on animal by-products. Animal by-products are materials of animal origin that are not eaten by humans. Animal by-products can be further processed into derived products. Examples of animal by-products are wool, feathers, manure, or hides, hooves, blood, fat, carcasses of animals that have died.  It is important to realize that also organs or tissues derived from (experimental) animals are considered animal by-products. Even diagnostic samples, such as ear tissue obtained from genotyping mice, or blood/serum/faeces collected in the context of health monitoring are considered animal by-products!  

Animal by-products, if not adequately handled, pose a risk for transmitting infections (animal-to-human or animal-to-animal). For this reason, far-reaching rules have been drawn up within Europe about what such materials may be used for and under what conditions, see https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/animal-products_en. 

Specifically, any institute that wishes to use/transport organs/tissues should comply with the following:  

  • Each research or educational institution active at any stage of the generation, transport, handling, processing, storage, placing on the market, distribution, use or disposal of animal by products or derived products must be registered and obtain from the competent public authority a formal authorisation for research.   This is already the case for all universities in Belgium and possibly also for most other educational institutions that require animal by-products; if in doubt, you should inquire about this within your organization. (see Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009 , Art.17 and 23)  
  • The institution must keep a register of all animal by-products including the dates on which the material was received and disposed of, the nature and origin of the samples, method of disposal, etc.  
  • This register can be an existing register that is also maintained for other purposes (e.g. within GLP framework). For instance, a register is required for carcasses of laboratory animals shipped to an external contractor for incineration. But a register is also required for carcasses send to an external partner who wants to feed the carcasses to carnivorous animals. 
  • A register is not required for diagnostic samples that are removed after the test. 
  • Each shipment of animal by-products in Belgium and/or export to another EU (or EFTA) country should be accompanied with a commercial document in triplicate, of which the format has been defined by Europe. For the shipment of most tissues/carcasses, the document to be used can be found in Annex VIII, Chapter III of Regulation – 142/2011 – EN – EUR-Lex (europa.eu). Special rules apply on research and diagnostic samples. 
  • It is required to get appropriate import authorizations for imports of animal by-products from third countries. And for shipping animal products to countries outside the European Union, make sure to follow the rules determined by the country to which the export is made. More information is available at:  
  • Process/dispose of all materials in accordance with legal requirements.  

BCLAS recommends that you contact the relevant government department to discuss your specific situation: Competent authorities | FPS Public Health (belgium.be). 

More information on animal by-products: 

 

A. What regulations regarding animal by-products must be followed to donate carcasses of small laboratory animals to establishments such as zoos or shelters for feeding to carnivores?

Answer: In principle, it is only allowed to feed Category 3 material or carcasses from animals which were not killed or did not die from the presence or suspected presence of a disease communicable to humans or animals. The following regulations should be followed: 

  • The provider as well as the receiver must be registered in application of article 23 or 18 respectively of the regulation (EC) nr. 1069/2009 for the transport and use of animal by-products.  
  • The provider and the receiver must keep a register. 
  • The transport can be done be a commercial shipper (that is registered and authorized to transport animal by-products), but also by a person working at the providing or receiving institute, as long as it is not the main profession of that person. 

BCLAS recommends that you contact the relevant government department to discuss your specific situation: Competent authorities | FPS Public Health (belgium.be)

B. What regulations regarding animal by-products must be followed to donate carcasses of small laboratory animals such as rodents to schools for use in an anatomy lesson?


Answer: donation of carcasses of small animals such as rodents or rabbits to schools is acceptable only if the rodents and rabbits which were not killed or did not die from the presence or suspected presence of a disease communicable to humans or animals.   

  • A school can receive not more than 20 kg of Category 3 material at once.  
  • Categories 1 or 2 are permitted only with special authorization from the competent authority (CA).  
  • The provider and the receiver must keep a register (with specification of method of disposal). 
  • The transport can be done be a commercial shipper (that is registered and authorized to transport animal by-products), but also by a person working at the providing or receiving institute, as long as it is not the main profession of that person. 

BCLAS recommends that you contact the relevant government department to discuss your specific situation: Competent authorities | FPS Public Health (belgium.be