Our research facilities
TNU is a unit within the Animal Research Facility (CDL) of Radboudumc and comprises an interdisciplinary team. We are over 80 researchers working with animal care technicians of the CDL and the veterinarian of the CDL. The unit is coordinated by two staff members and receives technical support by two more staff members.
The TNU is governed by the TNU board, which is comprised of four senior researchers of the TNU with a term of at least 2 years and meets monthly. The TNU board chair and co-chair switch every 2-years between Radboud and RadboudUMC. The TNU board is advised by the TNU user group, that is comprised of PhD and PostDocs and meets twice a year. To reach the TNU board please email tnucoordinators.cns@radboudumc.nl.
All experiments are approved and supervised by the members of the Animal Welfare Body. Thus all research is performed and supervised by a diverse group of people, independently checking for animal welfare as well as research quality.
Alternatives
Using alternatives is a good way to reduce the amount of animals needed, but currently no alternatives exist that can completely replace animals in research, instead they are complementary methods.
Animal handling
The well being of laboratory animals is an issue of crucial importance. Within our animal unit, we handle all animals with care and avoid stressful handling techniques as much as possible.
Facilities: DM1-2
In order to investigate the functions of a protein or to mimic the symptoms of a disease, researchers often increase or decrease the levels of a certain protein or induce changes at the genetic material.
Example of techniques available at TNU
At the TNU we make use of a large maze, object recognition rooms, prep rooms and many more techniques. See here for some examples and a full list of all techniques available.
Types of animals used in TNU
We use outbred wild-type mice and rats , and also breed special strains of mice and rats ourselves.
