 Good morning or good afternoon, everyone, depending on where you're joining us from. I'm Nia Johnson, a Senior Program Officer in the Board on Life Sciences and the Board on Animal Health Sciences Conservation and Research, or BASCR, here at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. I am the Director of the Roundtable on Science and Welfare in Laboratory Animal Use, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the inaugural webinar of the Roundtable. Your presence here today reflects your commitment to learning, sharing ideas, and fostering a collaborative environment. This is the inaugural webinar of a series of planned webinars for this year, based on the Roundtable 2024 theme of A Year of Communication. Our goal with the webinar series is to focus on specific topics using a platform that supports community education and fosters engagement. I'd like to thank you all for your interest and attendance today. Before we delve into the discussion, a couple of notes. If you have a question at any point during the presentations, please use the Q&A feature to submit your question. We will make every effort to respond to as many questions as possible. We will answer questions during the Q&A portion of the webinar scheduled at the end of the presentation. As we move into today's presentation, it is my privilege to introduce the individuals who will be guiding us through today's discussion. Our Roundtable chair, Dr. Sally Thompson-Iratani and the previous Roundtable chair, Dr. Joe Newsome, have played a pivotal role in bringing this webinar to you today. Their dedication to our shared goals has been nothing short of inspiring. Sally and Joe, the virtual stage is now yours. Thank you. Just confirming, everyone can hear me okay? Great. Fantastic. Wonderful. Thank you, Nia, for that fantastic introduction to our webinar series. We are really enthusiastic to have all of you joining us today. We actually wanted to kick this off by starting to talk about what are the questions that we're getting. If we could move to the next slide. Thank you. What are the questions people in our community have been asking? Well, a lot of it is, what is the current status of Ilar and the journal that we have all relied on, the Ilar Journal? How do the committees that Ilar Council, Ilar Roundtable, how do all of these committees work together? Then I know the burning question on everyone's mind is what is status on the guide revision? We're going to work through that today, Dr. Newsome and myself. Great to see you, Dr. Newsome. We're going to work through these questions today. Before we delve into this, just to let you know, the Ilar Journal, the part of that first question, it is currently on hiatus. But if you go to the website, all of the additions are available. You can go there and see. We're not currently putting out any new additions of the Ilar Journal. Next slide, please. We're going to give just a brief overview because I think it's always really important to remember where we've been. The National Academies have really been an iconic organization working together, starting from 1863. There is a non-profit, non-partisan, and non-governmental institution that provides high quality, objective, evidence-based advice on science, engineering, and health matters. Go ahead and go to the next slide, please. And really, to just kind of give you a brief overview of what this looks like, they provide independent, trustworthy advice, and facilitate solutions to complex challenges by mobilizing expertise, practice, and knowledge in science, engineering, medicine. And each year, approximately 6,000 top experts in their fields, including members of the academies, volunteer time, and extensive knowledge to conduct our policy studies, roundtable activities, symposia, and other activities like workshops, which we'll talk a little bit about some of those going on. And we really appreciate everyone's joining us today. Members are elected to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in recognition of outstanding achievements, and membership is considered one of the highest professional honors. Just remind everybody about that. You can also see additional information on this slide, which is available. Next slide, please. So what we're talking about today is some of the National Academy boards, which are under the Division of Earth and Life Studies. And the Executive Director, Elizabeth Eadie, and Catherine, sorry, my thing's a little bit, the Chair is Catherine Rodeke. And you can see that within this division, there are actually several boards. And the board that we're going to focus on, which used to be called the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, has been renamed the Board on Animal Health Sciences, Conservation, and Research. And if we could please go to the next slide. So I know everyone's like, what is with that name? So how do you say it? What does it mean? And really, you'll hear a little bit about how they came to that name from Dr. Newsom. But you can pronounce it, we are using the acronym. So we will be saying Basker as in basking, or you could say basker, as in, you know, basker. So you might hear either from Dr. Newsom and I, but the name is here to stay. So we understand that there are several different comments about the name, it's hard to get used to it maybe doesn't roll up the tongue as naturally as Ilar did for many of us. But we embrace it because of what it means. So now I'd like to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. Newsom, who will tell you a little bit more about that. Well, thank you, Sally. So I think it's important when you look at this name that you understand that this rebranding was not done lightly and took into account what originally happened with reestablishing Ilar in 2013 to relook and refocus the focus on animal usage when research requires animal usage in a wide variety of settings. And then link that also to the impact to the research outcomes, the welfare of the animals, and conservation in relationship to our environment, which some of you or many of you also understand as a one health initiative. So we really want to know and examine innovative animal models, look for alternative research approaches like we have been doing for years under the refinement reduction and replacement scenarios when we are doing alternative research approaches, but linking that directly to still what is the science based evidence that is needed to answer our scientific questions when animals are needed in. Finally, to make sure that we optimize welfare for the animals when we do have to use them in any of these environments, both in the laboratory or in a wildlife setting. Next slide please. So animal and other models of research, as I said, the Baskar's goal is to incorporate some of those concepts and there's been activities by the round table on this board to assure that we look at like micro products and other types of integrative in vitro and in vivo activities that could improve and also finding and maximizing the impact of current and future animal models research. The animal human health connection is part of the one health understanding that we're talking about and that includes issues that may relate to not only the interaction between the animal and their caretakers and their research staff, but also what is that human animal bond and how it might affect them long term and what is the impacts on their livelihood and their welfare. And then finally and most importantly, my opinion is the animal welfare care and use of the animals and can we optimize that animal welfare care and use when we do have to make a decision to use animals in research. Next slide please. So just a quick introduction. The board is made up of the folks on the screen here, but really what if you look at this, this is a mixture of individuals that have subject matter expertise in a wide variety of settings and these people are vetted and go through a process to become board members and they have taken it upon themselves just like the round table that Sally will be talking about in a little bit to refocus and redirect and make sure that Bhaskar's goals include some of the things I spoken about earlier. Next slide please. It's my pleasure to introduce the people that really make this happen behind the scenes. We know nothing happens without good support and our co-directors Kavita Bergen, Robin Shown and Susanna Rodriguez as program officer and Nia Johnson, the senior program officer and we can't do it without Mariah's help who's running our show today and Jeannie, she runs the money which is probably the most important position out of all of us and like I said we can't do it without such an excellent team behind us. Next slide please. So what I would like everybody to know is they're welcome to join the board on animal health sciences, conservation research, upcoming board meetings. So on May 1st and 2nd if you go to the NASA website and there'll be more information about this a little bit later on how to reach those folks or what the newsletters will look like. So please stay tuned or put it as a hold on your calendar for May 1st and 2nd 2024 and you can get a little bit more involved in that. Next slide please. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit and turn it back over to my esteemed colleague Dr. Thompson Erotani and she's going to take us forward and give us a little bit about what are some of the exciting activities that have been occurring in the roundtable on the science and welfare and laboratory animal use. Sally, take it away. Thank you Dr. Newsom. I really appreciate that. Yeah we're going to be talking about one of the activities that falls under the board and then we'll go to the next activity which I know everyone is waiting anxiously for but let's talk about the roundtable. If you can please go to the next slide. So the roundtable has really been working over the last year of re-envisioning what it's looking like and what are some of the goals which is one of the reasons actually for this webinar also just so all of you know is really figuring ways to outreach to all of you. The roundtable was established by the national academies now Basker. The roundtable provides a neutral environment to stimulate dialogue, catalyze movement around relevant issues, and collaborate among interested parties in promoting effective, efficient, and humane use of animals in research, testing, and education. And there is a lot of information on our website into what we're doing and how we're moving forward and how we're kind of reimagining our focus. So I invite all of you to go there and look at that. Next slide please. This shows our current roster for the roundtable and I'm currently serving as chair. As you have heard Dr. Newsome is the previous chair. We also do have a Basker liaison Dr. Robert Disco who kind of helps in integrating across the roundtable and the board. The other thing I will tell all of you is if you don't see your name here and you want to be here, there is an opportunity. So at the end we'll kind of talk about different opportunities for you to get engaged with either the board, the roundtable, understanding committee, and what those might look like. But I will tell you the roundtable there is opportunity for your organization to be involved and we want to promote that because the more voices we have at the table the better informed decisions we can make. So we really want to emphasize how important it is that each of you look to see how your voice can be heard. Next slide please. Now one of the things that's kicked off this webinar also is our workshop that we had in December and if you weren't able to join us for that workshop I highly recommend that you go on and look at it. It is available at this QR code and it was about effective communication with the general public about scientific research that requires the care and use of animals. And we really in this workshop went through, we had done a survey over a year ago now and we looked at the results of that survey and we looked at ways that we can increase our communication about the important work that we are doing. So I would invite all of you to go look at that when you have a chance. There's also going to be available the proceedings. If you don't have time to watch all of the webinars be totally understand that but we would encourage you to watch what you can and then when the proceedings come out those will be available for you. And then over the year we're planning on having more webinars where we'll be touching on some of the topics that we talked about at this workshop kind of doing a deeper dive into some of the things that we can do as a community to increase our communications and make them more effective. Next slide please. Also coming up and you don't want to miss it on June 4th and 5th is a contingency planning and training of personnel rule one year of implementation a workshop saying how is the implementation of our contingency planning going and this is so important for our environment. Contingency planning is critical. Things are continually changing and how we need to plan for these things. One of the things that just a side of side is that currently you know dealing with some cyber security and some things along those lines that we had always thought about in in previous decades of how we're dealing with cyber security and how it needs to be tied into a contingency planning and how we're thinking through that how we're making sure that we can do the best things we can do when there's something that we need to plan for and taking care of the animals and the people that are we need to we all also learned a lot from COVID. It was not something that that was over quickly. It took a long time to work through that so I think that this is an opportunity for us all to come together figure out how we're responding how we're making sure that we have contingency plans that will provide us with with proactive planning going forward. And next slide please. With that I am going to turn it over again to Dr. Newsome who is going to give you an update on the standing committee and where things are at for that. Well thank you Sally. I want to tell everybody how excited I am about the theme that the Roundtable is going to do for upcoming workshops on communication expertise and exchange going forward on a bunch of different themes and then I want to remind people prior to that contingency planning if you wanted some update the past Roundtable has on their website the lessons learned from COVID in animal research environments and I think that's a good place to start off before you join the June 4th and 5th meeting. So I've been tasked here to talk a little bit about the standing committee on science and welfare and laboratory animal use. So this standing committee was promulgated by the board to exchange ideas knowledge sharing about a large spectrum of individuals and categories of users when research animals have to be utilized. One of their main charters is to inform and gather information about what will the additions to the guide for the care and use of laboratory animals look like going through the future. And I'd like to share some of those with you now please next slide. So classic national academies what was put together as a group of subject matter experts across many industries with veterinarians pathologists scientists a large director of and former directors of scientific reviews and representing large institutions and small institutions. So this standing committee has been working very very hard over the last two years and let me talk you through some of those updates if I may next slide. So just a quick little history about the guide. So the guide for laboratory animal facilities and care was first published under NIH sponsorship way back in 1963 after a group of colleagues from around the country started meeting in about 1958 to start figuring out how can we improve research outcomes with animals. And you can see over time that the guide for the care and use of laboratory animals has gone through eight additions and each time there is an increase in the number of pages and guidance that is there. And I would remind everybody that it's guidance unless our regulatory agents make it a regulatory mandate. Most of the guide has to date been established not on engineering standards but on performance standards. And the funding for this switched between the sixth and seventh addition to be the NIH and other sponsors. The reason why the academies has been involved in this is because of its charter that it will become advisory and have collaborative dialogue across all shareholders and then advise back to the nation under the charter that wasn't initially put back in place in 1863. Next slide please. So once again this now shows the involvement by a much larger group as we move into the latest addition the 2011 addition was greatly supported by a wide spectrum of users of animals in research. And it does have its limitations however and I think that's one of the goals is how will the standing committee for the care and use of animal research look at its limitations and what its future may be. Next slide please. So at this stage what's happening is a lot of listening sessions and guidance from the community at large have been held over the last year and a half to two years. And now the standing committee for the care of use of animals and research is ready to improve and finalize and start moving forward on the next steps. And some of those are covered here is they would like to introduce and investigate what they've learned about new and improved process to evolve the guide over time such as it will be a living document and how that might work. Definitely as I said before they'll address limitations. They want to make sure that the voices of the scientific community and relevant species groups are properly heard although they'll stick with the standard that it will be based on current peer reviewed scientific literature. It probably is going to need a very focused and ongoing research support for experts and timely insights because the nature of research is moving so quickly. We said the last update is 2011 and we're out here a good 13 years later and there's a lot of science and information about using animals and research that is missing from the current guide. We want to make sure and this group wants to make sure that it's distributed widely and it brings a timely confident and usable and accessible product and that's one of the goals of the Standing Committee. Next slide please. So if you would like to know more about this update and how it's progressing I would invite you to join the workshop that the guide and the about the guide on April 23 and 24 and it's here as the registration QRS and please feel free to join us and it's open to everybody. Next slide. So I'm going to stop right now but I'm going to turn this over a little bit to Nia but this slide talks a little bit about all the boards and how you can be part of it and I think it's critical that as stated earlier the standing for your institution being at the table as well as from a commitment individually I find I have found it very rewarding as my colleagues do to participate in these events and you don't have to join a board or a round table but we're always looking for qualified experts especially subject matter experts. So Nia you want to go into that a little bit further for us? Sure thank you Joe. So as Dr. Sally Thompson, Irritani and Dr. Newsom have mentioned we are always looking for people who are subject matter experts who want to be involved in the activities that we do in the Basker. We do have a board we are always interested in accepting nominations and subject matter experts for the board as it is a rotating membership. We are also interested in nominations for the standing committee as well as the round table as Dr. Thompson Irritani mentioned. The round table we are currently interested in inviting people who have not necessarily had a seat at the table in the past but would be interested in participating in the discussions that we're having and the what we're looking for in the future to come to the round table and to join the discussions. We would be interested in having a robust discussion and we want to broaden our scope and the participation of the people that we are engaging with in the community. If joining one of the organizations is not your cup of tea there are more than abundant ways to join and participate with the Basker because we have so many activities going on you're welcome to join any of the meetings that we have that have public portions and are open to the public there's always a link that you're able to use to join all of our activities are now hybrid so that you don't have to worry about joining in person you're able to join online but we have the board meeting coming up at the beginning of May anyone who is interested in hearing the discussions that will be held during the public portion are able to join that anytime that we have an activity such as a workshop or something like this webinar you're always welcome to join we're also always looking for people to support the activities that we do as Dr. Sally Thompson Irittani mentioned the workshop that we had in December the workshop that we have coming up for the guide as opposed for contingency planning we're always looking for subject matter experts to join those workshop planning committees we value the voice that people bring to it and the influence that they have on the workshop and planning the workshop if you don't want to commit to planning the workshop you're always welcome to nominate someone who you feel would be a good person to have on those planning committees so you can nominate yourself or you can nominate someone else if you don't want to join and participate as a committee member we would also welcome recommendations for presenters at meetings we're always looking for people to come to meetings and present and give speeches or give presentations and if you're not interested in presenting at the meeting like I said you're always welcome to join the meeting and if you are interested in continuing your participation in these activities whenever we have a publication that comes out of one of our activities such as the workshop we're always looking for subject matter experts to participate as reviewers as well so that's a number of ways that you can be involved participate and have your voice join the work that the Baskar does can we get the next slide please and if you are interested in ways to stay up to date with the with the Baskar with the standing committee with the round table or the actual board itself please subscribe to our mailing list and you'll be able to um you'll be on the list to receive any updates about any activities that we have going on and when publications become available and the link that will you you'll be used to download those publications as well next slide please so at this point we'd like to open it up to anyone who has um any questions if you'd like please use the q and a feature on the webinar to ask your questions um I have questions here that I'd like to start off with and um either of you all are welcome to answer them the first question is what inspired the decision to change the organization's name you want me to take that sally sure yeah yeah so um the existing uh board and round table uh got together and we're discussing that the institute of lab animal resource was a little too focused under it all just being laboratory animal research that implied that it was all brick and mortar inside and it didn't extend all the way out to a research that's done in many environments such as conservation work a zoos field studies things along those lines so um and with the agreement everybody also understood how important especially after covid the uh the integration of one health and us understanding the environment with the animals and with the human interactions with those uh criteria that there was a hole in in the academies that wasn't being addressed specifically on this topic and that sort of led to refocusing what would the future look like for the board and I think the board uh took uh and addressed that in the renaming thank you for that and our next question is considering the significant public concern for animals and labs and the public funding of this project why are the board and the round table um lacking in expertise in non-animal methods and the law um yeah this is such a great question thank you for asking this question because I do think that we do want to be sure we're considering the expertise of everyone um and I think that we really do want to be sure we're including the adoption of non-animal methods into everything that we do and I know um for me and my colleagues that do work in the field of laboratory animal research we are looking at non-animal models and how they are being incorporated and just how essential they are and they're progressing incredibly rapidly really appreciate all of the effort that's going into that um and I I think to take that into consideration we appreciate the feedback and we will be sure that we consider that as we move forward I think one of the things as we're shifting as this board is shifting um is that it really was focused previously on laboratory animals so even those of us who are very committed to developing the non-animal methods also we need to understand and appreciate that as long as we are relying on animal models we need to ensure that we understand how best to take care of them so I also understand you know where do we put our resources and I think we need to be sure that we are investing really well in these non-animal models but we also need to ensure that like I said um previously while we are depending on animal models we are taking the best care possible of them to import to support the important work that we're doing there so I think we're definitely going to take that feedback and make sure that we can continue to emphasize how important these non-animal models are in supporting our scientific endeavors going forward so again thank you thank you very much for that question. Thanks Sally next question is how will the new name affect existing partnerships and collaborations? I don't think it will will it well the one thing it does and I don't think we we've brought this up if I may good question is that the it's not just a new naming it's actually getting a seat as a board on the national academies of science so before we didn't really have a full board presentation or or or a seat at the table and this allows greater collaborations across say the biological life sciences board and some of the other boards that didn't exist before so from that perspective I think it's been a good move to with the renaming and with the re-establishment within the academies. I just want to add to this you know as the as the board has been looking at this they're really trying to make sure that they're understanding how things are evolving and the you know research and biomedical research and safety has evolved over time and one of the examples that I bring up is that you know two decades ago when we talked about the the concept of using naturally occurring animal models that are occurring in our pet populations and things like that when when I would bring those things up people were like that doesn't make any sense they didn't they couldn't conceive of what that was going to look like but here we are you know fast forward to where we're at right now and we are seeing the value of looking across the spectrum at the animals who are coming into the vet clinics with very similar diseases and how we're ensuring adequate care and looking at things for how we can extrapolate also and treat both the humans and the animals to improve well-being of both so I think that this is something that's evolving and this is why the board had to really take a step back and look at that how is the board evolving along with our science along with our you know the public everything that's going into this and continuing that evolution so I think it is a lot to get used to particularly the name which seems really people are just trying to wrap their their head around and their tongue around quite honestly to say it right just the exact right way but I think that it really is that effort about moving us forward and continuing to evolve with the times thank you for that Sally another question kind of along those lines what opportunities does the new name present for the organization's future growth and development I'll start this Sally and you can jump in after so I think with the renaming there was also new focus and also directional changes and clarifications on the both baskers and the round tables directions going forward and what it does is allows a greater input as things evolve as Sally said to bring in and make sure the broad spectrum of all stakeholders actually have a seat at the table when these different and unique questions come up that need to be addressed that there isn't research or no one has really brought all the research together to come up with a what is best practice going forward or what is the best direction for animal use and welfare when research calls for that and I think it really opens up the door so that it's a much broader stakeholder like the prior question person asked is how do we get other people at the seat of table and I think this is one of the ways that we do this with this renaming and the repositioning of the board thanks for that Joe another question that we have this one is about the guide is it possible in the future for the guide to include guidelines on invertebrates despite the PHS policy applying strictly to vertebrate animals I'd be happy to take this one and and so you know because we have cephalophods where I currently work and we have a lot of discussion about them quite honestly it's become one of the major things that we're trying to evaluate and how do we make sure that we're recognizing and taking really good care of these sentient creatures when we when we do use them to support scientific endeavors and what does that really look like so I think that you know does this get included in the guide is a really big question but does it get included in our thought process about how we're caring for animals that we interact with and I think that's a definite yes how the guide itself is going to address those is still under discussion I would emphasize that you know there is a cephalopod community of people that work together the standardized methods of how to care for these animals how to provide for them what's the best procedures for interacting with them how do we minimize pain and distress in these animals all of those things are being discussed so regardless of whether it gets included in the guide we still have to take responsibility and that I think is something that we can emphasize to each other and to everybody so there I know that group is working together on creating standard procedures they're working some with what's called the cuss the standard procedure library to establish that so they can share that across the community and make it available to other people who might be looking at you know if they're going to be interacting with cephalopods in their science how does that look and how can they do the best job of that going forward so I think like I say to me there might be components of that in the guide but regardless it doesn't take away the accountability the accountability is still there and I'll add to that I talked about the the the guide revision team identifying limitations and I've sat in on some of the summary sessions and I believe that same question is on the table for the people that will be revising the guide is how does the guide address this issue is it more in a general sense as Sally said that we always make sure that we take care of them or is it more of a strict regulatory brick and mortar type of discussion and I think at least philosophically from my perspective I'm hoping that the folks that get assigned to some of the limitations on species and other types of research options actually take that into account and I think they probably will thanks for that answer one other question that we have would it make sense to have a structure to the membership of the board now to assure all parties are represented for example wildlife field study experts zoos conservation groups it now seems to sit heavy with research labs I'm happy to answer I think that totally makes sense and I think that that's where we're going to be considering continuing to look for expertise in all of these areas and having people come together for really constructive conversations and I think this is a great place to have those conversations I've seen some incredibly respectful dialogue in these venues and that's where we need to be going moving forward that's how we progress and that's how we move forward so I personally think that that's a fantastic idea and I do think it's under consideration I will tell you that you know Joe kind of gave an overview of the leadership support from within the national academies they are very committed to making sure that all voices are present and that there's new voices being presented so I think that that's really important I do do want to be sure I I say you know the board is not just lab animal focused I can see where people may feel that way but you know I think there is also an opportunity though to get more voices at that table and that is seriously taken into consideration but one of the reasons that they did this rebranding was to represent the people who are on the board to to make sure that they that we all understand that they do have all of these different people that some are already there maybe there's an opportunity to add more but I would just say that there are people on that are very one health focused and have very different focuses than just lab animal thank you for that Sally this will be the last question where will the meeting recording and slides be made available to the public and where and the answer to that is yes it will be available and it will be on the round table website for every once of you yeah and and me have you don't mind I just will clarify I think the question about the membership of the board maybe was for overall the board the round table and everything so the actual basket board is one third lab animal one third one health and wildlife and conservation I do think at this point the round table maybe is more focused on the laboratory animal focus partly because of its mission but we also want other voices there so please reach out and let's see how we can make sure we get other voices and we can broaden that because we do want to hear from others and we do want those people at the table so you know Dr. Newsom if you want to add anything to that but I really think that that's one of the reasons we're trying to do some of these webinars and get the communications out yeah the the one thing I would add to that is as we develop workshops and other other devices webinars on different topics going forward I think it's critical that the focus of the planning committee is diverse and represents subject matter experts and then it's up to that planning committee and the public to say we have subject matter experts in these fields that would make a difference in this discussion and then invite those folks as Nia pointed out earlier to those conversations at the academies and I think that is part of how we maintain diversity and we get the right mixture of voices and everyone gets inclusivity on these topics that they find to be passionate for themselves and they want to make sure their point is heard absolutely thank you for that Joe we definitely want to have as many voices at the table as possible so I just want to say our goal was to wrap this up under 45 minutes I think we achieved that which is is then we don't want to necessarily take a lot of your time but we do want to provide information and I think that if you know if there's any feedback on additional people that you want to hear from I know Nia you're going to close this out but I would just say you know we're very open to feedback and we really want these to be you know kind of snippets of information that you can take back and not to take too much of your time in the process absolutely thank you for that Sally so as we do come to the close for today's webinar I would like to thank everyone for your attendance and your participation in our discussion as we said before the webinar was recorded today and it will be available on the roundtables website for viewing and for downloading I'd also like to put in a plug for our next upcoming webinar please be on the lookout for information that we will be sharing shortly about the next webinar which will be on miss and disinformation and that will be held in the late spring early summertime frame thank you again for your attendance and your participation and please enjoy the rest of your day