• Question: Do you do animal testing?

    Asked by blenky to Carla, Madgie, Nick, Vicky, Werner on 14 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Werner Muller

      Werner Muller answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      We work with mouse mutants that carry genetic changes in order to better define mechanism of disease. One of the mutant mice is deficient in Interleukin-10. This mutant helped us a lot to understand the mechanism of chronic inflammatory bowel disease. It is also informative in the area of ageing research, a topic that is getting more and more popular in Europe.
      I recently participated in the big animal research debate. You can look up more here http://animalresearchdebate.idebate.org.

    • Photo: Marlene Lorgen

      Marlene Lorgen answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      We do use some animals in our studies, but try to use a little as possible. There are lots of new lab techniques which means we don’t have to use many animals at all, such as cell culture and the establishment of cell lines. Once a cell line is established, we do not need to use any animals for some studies in those cells.

    • Photo: Nick Groves-Kirkby

      Nick Groves-Kirkby answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      I don’t often work with animals myself, but people I work with breed mice and send me data about them. We don’t do anything harmful to the mice, and there are strict laws about how we are allowed to keep them.

      ‘Animal testing’ is sometimes a negative phrase, and it’s been used to describe things like testing cosmetics on animals (which I think has now largely stopped). As scientists we usually call what we do ‘animal research’ instead.

    • Photo: Vicky Forster

      Vicky Forster answered on 19 Nov 2013:

      Hi Blenky,

      I don’t personally do animal testing no, but I do know people who do. Animal testing (mostly on mice and small fish called zebrafish) is absolutely essential in cancer research, both for finding out what genes which we think cause cancer do – and also for testing new cancer drugs before we give them to patients. It’s currently the law that any kind of medicine must be tested on animals in the UK before giving it to people – so any medicine that you have taken, from painkillers to antibiotics – will have been tested on animals.

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