replacement, reduction and refinement

Formal Definition

A term describing current internationally accepted strategies for minimizing use and suffering of laboratory animals used in experimental research. The optimal solution is to Replace the test method requiring animal experiments with one or several in vitro methods; if this is not possible at least it might be possible to modify the methods in order to Reduce the number of animals being used in each study without compromising data quality; if this is also not possible it might at least be possible to Refine the test method so that experiments are conducted in a way minimizing stress and other impact on the animals.