Mardas Daneshian I, Mohammad A. Akbarsha2, Bas Blaauboer3, Francesca Caloni4, Pierre Cosson 5, Rodger Curren 6, Alan Goldberg 7, Franz Gruber8, Frauke Oh19, Waiter Pfaller 10, Jan van der Valkll, Pilar VinardellI2, Joanne Zurlo7, Thomas Hartungl• 7,13, and Marcel Leist1•14 ' Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing Europe, University of Konstanz, Germany; 2 Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center (MGDC) for Alternatives to Use of Animals in Life Science Education, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli , India; 3 Doerenkamp­ Zbinden Chair on Alternatives to Animal Testing in Toxicological Risk Assessment, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Division of Toxicology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; 4 Department of Veterinary Sciences Technologies for Food Safety, Universita degli Studi di Milano , Italy; 5 Doerenkamp-Naef-Zbinden Chair on In vitro alternatives to animal experiments, Geneva Faculty of Medicine, Switzerland; 6 Institute for In Vitro Sciences, Inc., USA; 7 Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for Evidence-based Toxicology and Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Iohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dept. Environmental Health Sciences, Baltimore, USA; 8 Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation, Switzerland; 9 Animal Welfare & Laboratory Animal Science and Animals in Science & Society, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; IO Innsbruck Medical University, Department of Physiology and Medical Physics, Division Physiology, Austria; " 3Rs-Centre Utrecht Life Sciences, and NKCA, Department of Animals in Science and Society, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine , Utrecht University, The Netherlands; 12 Departament de Fisiologia, Facultat de Farmacia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain; 13 University of Konstanz, Toxicology and Pharmacology, Konstanz, Germany; '4 Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for Biomedicine and in vitro Toxicology, University of Konstanz, Germany

Development of improved communication and education strategies is important to make alternatives to the use of animals, and the broad range of applications of the 3Rs concept better known and understood by different audiences. For this purpose, the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe (CAAT-Europe) together with the Transatlantic Think Tank for Toxicology (t(4)) hosted a three-day workshop on "Teaching Alternative Methods to Animal Experimentation". A compilation of the recommendations by a group of international specialists in the field is summarized in this report. Initially, the workshop participants identified the different audience groups to be addressed and also the communication media that may be used. The main outcome of the workshop was a framework for a comprehensive educational program. The modular structure of the teaching program presented here allows adaptation to different audiences with their specific needs; different time schedules can be easily accommodated on this basis. The topics cover the 3Rs principle, basic research, toxicological applications, method development and validation, regulatory aspects, case studies and ethical aspects of 3Rs approaches. This expert consortium agreed to generating teaching materials covering all modules and providing them in an open access online repository.

Conference ReportsMany (alternative) ways lead to Rome… … impressions from Rome, the 7 th World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use in the life Sciences, 2009 Normally books are printed after a conference (and the proceedings of the World Congress we just witnessed will follow in this journal).this conference, however, was itself imprinted by two books: The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique and Toxicity Testing for the 21 st Century: a Vision and a Strategy.this year marks the 50 th birthday of the milestone publication of The Principles by Bill Russell and Rex Burch.their classic book, which has served as the conceptual framework for what we understand today as the 3Rs of alternatives, continues to inspire an ever increasing array of activities, centers, societies, and projects.the second book, a report known informally as Tox-21c, was published in 2007 by the US National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences.though it is only two years old, the impact of this slender volume is being felt worldwide.these key books represent two approaches, two motivations to rethink animal experimentation.the 3Rs concept is driven by ethical concerns regarding animal use -the principles of reduction, refinement, and replacement offer a societal compromise that allows dialogue between those who want to abolish animal experimentation and those who consider it unavoidable.A major thrust of WC7 was to take stock of this movement, which has gained momentum, especially in europe, due to recent legislation.

This is the report of the thirty-third of aseries of workshops organised by the Euro-pean Centre for the Validation of AlternativeMethods (ECVAM). ECVAM™s main goal, asdefined in 1993 by its Scientific AdvisoryCommittee, is to promote the scientific andregulatory acceptance of alternative methodswhich are of importance to the biosciencesand which reduce, refine or replace the use oflaboratory animals. One of the first prioritiesset by ECVAM was the implementation ofprocedures which would enable it to becomewell-informed about the state-of-the-art ofnon-animal test development and validation,and the potential for the possible incorpora-tion of alternative tests into regulatory pro-cedures. It was decided that this would bebest achieved by the organisation of ECVAMworkshops on specific topics, at which smallgroups of invited experts would review thecurrent status of various types of