Whilst doing his PhD research, Gastroenterologist Donald Ormonde, found it necessary to sacrifice animals to study their livers.

Like many researchers, Donald found this aspect of research unpleasant and also wasteful - because his focus was on livers but the rest of the animal went into the bin. In an effort to reduce this waste, and to reduce the number of animals sacrificed, Donald would roam the corridors, looking for other researchers who might be interested in sharing animals.

This did result in some reduction, but there had to be a better way.

A chance meeting at a function at his children's school led to the formation of Ethitex Pty Ltd, a partnership between Donald, Beau Tang and Elk Software Group. Donald's research experience and his partners' IT expertise were combined to produce the Ethitex Program, a secure internet-based Tissue Sharing database and search tool.

Ethitex partnered with the University of Western Australia to successfully pilot the program. Now fully operational, Ethitex is available to any bona-fide research organisation. Demonstrate your commitment to reducing animal sacrifice in research by subscribing to Ethitex and save money at the same time.