New Delhi: Cockroaches, frogs, earthworms are the most common animals found, not in their habitat places, but in the science laboratories for dissection. They are the most common dissected species found on the dissection tray of science students, which soon may not be a done thing.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) recently set up an expert committee to ban the dissection of animals for zoology experiments in colleges and universities.

The first meeting of the five-member committee will be held on January 6, 2010 where the possibility of the decision would be meted out.

The committee, constituted at the initiative of the Human Resource Development (HRD) minister, Kapil Sibal, is expected to suggest eco-friendly ways for dissection by switching over from the real to the virtual world.

All the dissections would now be done on computers rather than on animals.

The committee is chaired by H.A. Ranganath, Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University, and comprises S. Balasubramaniam, Director of DRDO Centre for Life Sciences at Bharathiar University in Coimbatore; Sunil Chhumber of AIIMS; Roop Lal, Department of Zoology of Delhi University; and a nominee of director general of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).