Dr. Brianna N. Gaskill: “Experimental Design of Animal Studies“

The 9th Webinar in the 3Rs training series, organized by the Animal Protection Commissioner of Berlin and the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), in collaboration with the Veterinary Chamber of Berlin, will take place on Wednesday, February 16, at 1 pm EST/ 7 pm CET.
Registration

Abstract:

Dr. Brianna Gaskill’s talk will go over in everyday terms: the reasons why good experimental design is so important; what it should look like in a project proposal; how to identify reasonable and unreasonable sample sizes; why and how to include multiple strains or both sexes without increasing sample size; and how to identify when improved experimental design may allow scientists to perform the same work better with fewer animals. This talk will be user friendly (it won’t use equations), and the goal is to provide a set of rules of thumb for quick assessment of experimental design and sample size so that both scientists and AWB/IACUCs can triage out protocols where they might want to seek input from a biostatistician or a 3Rs expert.

Bio:

Brianna N. Gaskill, PhD, received her BS from Kansas State University in 2004 and PhD in Animal Behavior and Well-being from Purdue University in 2011. She completed a postdoctoral position at Charles River after graduation, then returned to Purdue as a faculty member in 2014 and was awarded tenure in 2020. Her research has focused on developing new animal welfare assessment methodologies, rodent well-being, and elucidating the scientific impact of welfare problems in animal-based research. In 2020, she started a new position at Novartis as their first ever 3Rs scientist where she is working closely with disease area scientists to apply 3Rs strategies to improve animal welfare and drug discovery. Her research contributions have been acknowledged by receiving awards from the NC3R’s, the Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association, and the International Society for Applied Ethology.