Animal facility, research and animal welfare at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine

The animal facility provides the basis for a wide range of research projects at the BNITM aimed at gaining a better understanding of infectious diseases. Without animal testing, it would not yet be possible to develop vaccines and medicines to combat these diseases. For many years, we have been striving to reduce animal testing as much as possible and to establish alternative methods.

Across a total area of 843.7 m², 1,288 animals (mice, rats and other rodents) are currently housed, cared for and bred. Of these, 500 animals are in the laboratory animal facility, 587 are used for breeding and 201 live in our retirement home (as of March 2026).

We focus on animal-friendly husbandry under strict hygienic conditions. In addition to providing comprehensive care and attention to the laboratory animals, the animal care staff are actively involved in planning and carrying out experiments.

Together with other Leibniz Institutes and in accordance with the recommendations of the Standing Senate Commission on Animal Experimentation of the German Research Foundation (DFG) (see Further Information), we are working to reduce the number of animal experiments and to supplement – and, where possible, replace – them with alternative methods.

The BNITM is a member of the “Initiative Transparente Tierversuche”, an information initiative launched by “Tierversuche verstehen” and the DFG’s Standing Senate Commission on Animal Experimentation, with the support of the Alliance of Science Organisations. Together with the 127 signatories to the transparency initiative (as of 27 October 2025), we are pursuing the objectives of ‘providing transparent information’, ‘helping to shape public dialogue’, ‘exchanging experiences’ and ‘raising awareness of our activities’.

On our information pages, you can find out more about animal husbandry, animal experimentation and animal welfare at the BNITM. Should you have any further questions regarding our animal experimentation work, please do not hesitate to contact our animal welfare officers.