日本動物実験代替法学会 第33回大会（Web開催）

The 33rd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments will be held online in 2020, as the result of considering the multifaceted effects of the new coronavirus. In addition, it has been decided that the conference at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), which was originally scheduled for this year, will be held at the same time in 2021 as the 34th conference under the same chairman, Makoto Suzuki. For the online conference, an organizing committee led by the board of directors has been hastily formed to plan and implement the conference with as little burden on the members as possible, while at the same time, we will ensure a regular forum for the presentation and discussion of our achievements as an academic organization. Details of the project will be posted on this site. Although it is difficult to provide the same level of service as those in the physical event, we would like to ask for your understanding and support.

The theme of the conference is "Beyond COVID-19 to the Future of 3Rs". It is based on the desire to provide an opportunity to think about how the 3Rs principle, “Replacement”, “Reduction” and “Refinement”, should be re-understood and how it can be developed in order to overcome the difficulties caused by the new coronavirus and to start building a society in the medium to long term. This new coronavirus disaster has shed light on the importance of experiments on animals, including large primates, in order to save our lives and the importance of the 3Rs principle, especially in promoting “Refinement” and “Reduction”. On the other hand, new methods of assessing the development of drugs and vaccines that do not use animals to promote “Replacement” are also attracting much attention.

This online conference will be held in the afternoon of Thursday, November 12 and all day of Friday, November 13, and will be limited to 1.5 days. These symposia will not be stacked and are open to all participants. All the general presentations are posters and are divided into several parallel sessions, each of which is online and can be freely accessed by participants, and each of which will have a presentation and Q&A. Of course, the selection and awarding of excellent presentations such as the conference and student awards will be carried out as usual. Although the General Assembly and the Award Ceremony will be held as usual, some of the annual events will be cancelled. We will not have a corporate exhibition this time, however, we would like to introduce companies who kindly supported is in this event. From a medium- to long-term perspective, the balance between the societal demand to comply with animal welfare and the scientific demand for mechanism-based evaluation of effects in humans - the implementation of the 3Rs principle from the perspective of our society - is a direction of human development that cannot be reversed. The Japanese Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments, which places great importance on research as well as contact with society, is becoming more and more important in the fight against the new coronavirus difficulties, and we hope that this conference will contribute to this trend. We look forward to welcoming many participants from both inside and outside the alternative methods society.