Animal Welfare Body (OPBA) and Ethics Committee

This page brings together the Animal Welfare Body (OPBA), which oversees animal experimentation, and the SISSA Ethics Committee, which assesses research projects involving human and animal subjects.

This page collects the essential provisions and rules governing animal experimentation. For further information, contact the secretariat of the Animal Welfare Body (OPBA) at opba@sissa.it.

Animal experimentation: criteria, legislation and authorisation templates

Conscientious objection to animal experimentation

The role of the SISSA Ethics Committee is the assessment of research projects on human and animal subjects submitted by SISSA’s researchers, to check their consistency with national and international regulations of scientific research.

The SISSA Ethics Committee is composed of:

  • Mauro Bussani: professor of Comparative Law at the University of Trieste and Adjunct Professor at the University of Macao, S.A.R. of the People’s Republic of China. He is co-editor of the Cambridge University Press series ‘The Common Core of European Private Law’.
  • Paolo Manganotti: full professor at the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of Medicine at the University of Trieste and Director of the Functional Department of Clinical Neurosciences – Cattinara Hospital in Trieste.
  • Alberto Petrocelli: studied Veterinary Medicine at the University of Bologna and Laboratory Animal Science and Medicine at the University of Milan. He works as animal care unit manager in a biotech company (Primmbiotech, Milan) and as consulting veterinarian for SISSA since 2012.
  • Raffaella Ida Rumiati: professor of cognitive neuroscience whose research has focused on mapping cognitive mechanisms in the brain, in neurological populations. Her main domains of interest have been language, action, object recognition, categorisation and emotion. She is now investigating the (neuro)cognitive and personality factors that influence learning outcomes.

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