Veterinary Public Health Institute, Animal Welfare Division

About us

Dr. Janja Novak

Research Associate and Technician

Phone
+41 31 684 24 28
E-Mail
janja.novak@vetsuisse.unibe.ch
Office
221
Postal Address
Animal Welfare Division
Veterinary Public Health Institute
University of Bern
Länggassstrasse 120
3012 Bern

Research

Research

  • Examination of the relation between husbandry procedures to animal welfare and experimental outcomes with particular emphasis on refinement. More info
  • RepFail: Understanding Replication Failure in Animal Research – Lack of Scientific Rigor, Low Statistical Power, or Standardization? RepFail
  • European Quality in Preclinical Data (EQIPD)

CV

Dr. Janja Novak's first degree was in Biology at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) followed by the MSc in “Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare” at the University of Edinburgh (UK), where her dissertation was on social structure of a larger group of dogs housed in a rescue shelter (in association with Bristol University). After completing the MSc course she worked for several animal protection charities in different fields, ranging from animals in captivity to farm animals, before starting PhD studies in 2011.
Her PhD project involved looking at affective states in laboratory mice, developmental aspects of stereotypic behaviour, and mechanisms underlying these abnormal behaviours and she graduated in 2016 from the University of Bern. 

Publications

Jump to: 2022 | 2020 | 2018 | 2016 | 2015

2022

Novak, Janja; Jaric, Ivana; Rosso, Marianna; Rufener, Reto; Touma, Chadi; Würbel, Hanno (2022). Handling method affects measures of anxiety, but not chronic stress in mice. Scientific Reports, 12(1), p. 20938. Nature Publishing Group 10.1038/s41598-022-25090-9

Arroyo-Araujo, María; Voelkl, Bernhard; Laloux, Clément; Novak, Janja; Koopmans, Bastijn; Waldron, Ann-Marie; Seiffert, Isabel; Stirling, Helen; Aulehner, Katharina; Janhunen, Sanna K; Ramboz, Sylvie; Potschka, Heidrun; Holappa, Johanna; Fine, Tania; Loos, Maarten; Boulanger, Bruno; Würbel, Hanno; Kas, Martien J (2022). Systematic assessment of the replicability and generalizability of preclinical findings: Impact of protocol harmonization across laboratory sites. PLoS biology, 20(11), e3001886. Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001886

Jaric, Ivana; Völkl, Bernhard; Clerc, Melanie; Schmid, Marc W; Novak, Janja; Rosso, Marianna; Rufener, Reto; von Kortzfleisch, Vanessa Tabea; Richter, S Helene; Buettner, Manuela; Bleich, André; Amrein, Irmgard; Wolfer, David P; Touma, Chadi; Sunagawa, Shinichi; Würbel, Hanno (2022). The rearing environment persistently modulates mouse phenotypes from the molecular to the behavioural level. PLoS biology, 20(10), e3001837. Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001837

von Kortzfleisch, Vanessa Tabea; Ambrée, Oliver; Karp, Natasha A; Meyer, Neele; Novak, Janja; Palme, Rupert; Rosso, Marianna; Touma, Chadi; Würbel, Hanno; Kaiser, Sylvia; Sachser, Norbert; Richter, S Helene (2022). Do multiple experimenters improve the reproducibility of animal studies? PLoS biology, 20(5), e3001564. Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001564

2020

Bailoo, Jeremy D.; Voelkl, Bernhard; Varholick, Justin; Novak, Janja; Murphy, Eimear; Rosso, Marianna; Palme, Rupert; Würbel, Hanno (2020). Effects of weaning age and housing conditions on phenotypic differences in mice. Scientific reports, 10(1), p. 11684. Springer Nature 10.1038/s41598-020-68549-3

2018

Bailoo, Jeremy Davidson; Murphy, Eimear Mary; Varholick, Justin Adam; Novak, Janja; Palme, Rupert; Würbel, Hanno (2018). Evaluation of the effects of space allowance on measures of animal welfare in laboratory mice. Scientific Reports, 8(1), p. 713. Nature Publishing Group 10.1038/s41598-017-18493-6

2016

Novak, Janja; Bailoo, Jeremy Davidson; Melotti, Luca; Würbel, Hanno (2016). Effect of Cage-Induced Stereotypies on Measures of Affective State and Recurrent Perseveration in CD-1 and C57BL/6 Mice. PLoS ONE, 11(5), e0153203. Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pone.0153203

2015

Novak, Janja; Stojanovski, Klement; Melotti, Luca; Reichlin, Thomas Stephan Albin; Palme, Rupert; Würbel, Hanno (2015). Effects of stereotypic behaviour and chronic mild stress on judgement bias in laboratory mice. Applied animal behaviour science, 174, pp. 162-172. Elsevier 10.1016/j.applanim.2015.10.004

Novak, Janja; Bailoo, Jeremy Davidson; Melotti, Luca; Rommen, Jonas; Würbel, Hanno (2015). An Exploration Based Cognitive Bias Test for Mice: Effects of Handling Method and Stereotypic Behaviour. PLoS ONE, 10(7), e0130718. Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pone.0130718