If you suffer from any allergies (e.g. to animals, substances, food, etc.), please make sure to bring any emergency medication with you (e.g. Ventolin, Epipen, etc.) as a precaution.
Should you have any questions regarding the substances or animals you may come into contact with during the course, please do not hesitate to contact us in advance.
Please note that we do not accept any responsibility for health-related incidents occurring during the course.
If all rooms are available for our courses we plan to have practical part of this education in
- Janaury (February) in Zürich
- April in Basel
- June in Zürich
- August in Zürich
- October in Zürich
In January, June and August there is also the possibility to take this course in German language. See M1 Deutsch
Some practical training sessions are organised by the University of Bern only for students and collaborators of the University of Bern, TKI and Insel Hospital. See registrations
We have adapted the registration system for modules 1 (rodent course) and 20 (non rodent species course). You register separately for the theory (with its written examination) and for the practical part. This way you choose and know all the exact dates for your training.
As soon as your registration for the theory is validated, you will receive access to our e-learning platform to start viewing the readings at your convenience up until the date of the exam.
For more details, please refer to this explanatory document.
This education gives expertise and practical skills for a responsible and gentle handling of laboratory animals (according to the Swiss legislation). In this course you will learn the handling and the techniques in laboratory rodent (mouse and rat). This introductory course takes a total of 40 hours and is divided in a theoretical and practical part of about 20 hours each.
Training concept: the limited number of hours gives no extensive knowledge and routine in the execution of the learned techniques. The participants need to be made aware about the animal welfare aspects before, during and after the experiment in order to use these in the everyday laboratory work. Acquired skills and practical competence will be evaluated.
A written exam must be taken at the end of the course to validate the acquisition of knowledge. This examination is required by Swiss law.
Theoretical part:
- Ethics and legislation
- Anaesthesia and pain alleviation
- Nutrition, transport and husbandry - Biostatistics
- Health
- Breeding
- Transgenic techniques
- Pain assessment and Humane Endpoints
- 3R und alternative methods
Practical part:
- Handling with mice and rats
- Restraining methods
- Applications
- Observation of normal behavior
- Behavioral abnormalities
- Anaesthesia (Inhalation / Injection)
- Collection of samples (blood)
- applied 3Rs (Refine)
- Identification
- Euthanasia
This course is approved by the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office as official education in Switzerland for experimenters and is also accredited by the FELASA (Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations) according to the functions of the EU Directive (functions A, C, D and modules 20 and 21).
Because of the use of live animals in this training, the participant must be involved in the near future in animal experimentation. In order to give the possibility to the authorities to check this, we ask for the name of the study director and the license number in the registration form.
Universities in Switzerland: CHF: 1'400.-
Industry, external person and institutions from abroad: CHF 1'900.-
Please note that we will charge you the full fees in case of a late cancellation of the course (within 3 weeks before start of the course) or in case of absence. It is the responsibility of the participant to inform the organizer of the course about the cancellation before the deadline of 3 weeks before the course to avoid the billing of the course. To charge for cancellations is common practice by other providers, too. The new proceedings for education courses became necessary due to an increasing extent of short term cancellations in training modules.
Insurance is responsibility of each participant.
Data from course evaluations, collected anonymously, may be used for the preparation of institutional reports (for example, the annual report of our institute) as well as for fulfilling requests from cantonal or federal authorities. They may also be used for scientific publications.
If registration data are used, they will be fully anonymized to ensure compliance with legal data protection requirements.
There is no time limit for retaining these data. Non-anonymized registration data are stored on secure UZH servers that meet the university’s data security standards. These non-anonymized data (evaluations of courses) do not pose any risk, as they cannot be linked to any individual person or to any specific institution or company.
By this notice, participants are informed that such uses may take place without further individual notification, as only anonymous or anonymized data will be used.