Background

The AO Research Institute in Davos tests orthopaedic and trauma treatments, implants and surgical techniques before they reach patients. Most of that work involves surgery, and most of it would benefit from knowing what is happening physiologically in the animal afterwards, not just at a few sampling points.

Getting that information has traditionally meant handling the animal, restraining it, or anaesthetising it, each of which causes the stress that distorts the measurement. Telemetry avoids this. A small device implanted in the animal transmits heart rate, blood pressure and temperature continuously, while the animal moves around normally. Nothing is attached to it and nobody needs to touch it.

Continuous measurement also changes what can be known about the animals themselves. Physiological data gathered across a whole study, rather than at a few fixed points, gives a far more accurate picture of what an animal is experiencing, which is the basis for judging how much a procedure costs it.

The implantation surgery is the part that has to be learned properly. The Zurich Integrative Rodent Physiology group, led by Petra Seebeck at the University of Zurich, has long-standing expertise in it. Over eight weeks, James Tapia-Dean worked through the technique there, from observation and practice to operating independently under supervision.

The institute had no in-house telemetry expertise. Bringing it back closes that gap, and the plan is for it to become a standard method there rather than one person’s skill.

Aims

• Learn to implant telemetry devices in rodents, and to handle the data they produce.
• Progress from observing and assisting to performing the surgery independently under supervision.
• Bring the technique back to Davos, where it is currently missing, and lead its use there.
• Write up protocols and training material so other staff at the institute can adopt it.
• Evaluate which telemetry devices suit the institute’s own studies.