An aged rodent tissue bank fills unmet needs for biomedical research on aging

Abstract

Biomedical research on aging has made large numbers of life-changing discoveries using animal models. That includes studies to enhance healthy aging and prevent development of chronic disease conditions which depend for the most part on the availability of animal models for preclinical investigations. The introduction of new approach methodologies complements the use of live animals with studies that can be conducted in silico, in vitro, and in chemico, alleviating the need for very large numbers of animals. The United States National Institute on Aging has developed an Aged Rodent Tissue Bank that provides tissues collected from barrier maintained specific pathogen free mice and rats. These tissues are stored in a frozen state, or as formalin fixed paraffin embedded unstained histology slides or tissue microarrays. Major organs from multiple age groups are available. Use of these archived specimens in many cases removes the need to support and maintain live animals and helps generate rigorous and reproducible research results while reducing the number of animals.

Keywords: Aged mice, aged rats, aged rodent tissue bank, aging research, new approach methodologies