History and development of laboratory animal science in Sri Lanka

The Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo (UCFM), is the forerunner in the laboratory animal science (LAS) field in Sri Lanka. Here laboratory animals such as rats, frogs and rabbits were used in medical education to demonstrate physiological principles in the early 1950s. The establishment of the first animal house in 1969 at UCFM better facilitated the use of laboratory animals in medical education and research. By 2006, lack of ethical guide lines was an issue and a set of ethical guidelines was developed and published in 2009, which today are followed by researchers and reviewers in many universities and research institutions in the country. With this development, there was a need for an organized system of education for the LAS discipline. This was fulfilled by conducting the first certificate course on LAS in the Asian region in 2011 in collaboration with the Utrecht University, Netherlands. The Sri Lanka Association for LAS has continued LAS education since its establishment in 2012 at UCFM by conducting workshops and short courses.