• Question: do you use animals in your work?

    Asked by bigbadbreadbin to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Leisha, Seyyed on 11 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 11 Jun 2012:


      Nope, I’m far too squeamish! But there are some questions that can only be answered by looking at whole animals, so I think it is necessary sometimes. There are hundreds of rules and regulations in the UK that make sure experimental animals suffer as little as possible.

    • Photo: Anouk Gouvras

      Anouk Gouvras answered on 11 Jun 2012:


      Thankfully no but I agree with Judith, sometimes it is necessary. Luckily there are many, many regulations in place in the UK. I don’t really agree with the use of animals in cosmetic research but I think for diseases and medical research, sometimes you do have to use them. Luckily scientists are always looking for ways to remove the necessity of animals in their research and in fact scientists get awarded prizes if they succeed in doing so by the National Center for the replacement, refinement and reduction of animals in Research (NC3R) organisation. The organisation works with scientists, funders, animal welfare organisations and regulators to encourage and fund work and the development of techniques that remove the need to use animals in research and also to ensure that any animals that are used are treated humanely. My supervisor for my PhD won one of these awards because she and her team succeeded in developing a technique which allows us to collect and study schistosome parasites’ DNA without the use of laboratory animals. Which I am very happy about.

    • Photo: Chris Kettle

      Chris Kettle answered on 12 Jun 2012:


      No – Just humans.

      I used to work with centipedes though.

    • Photo: Leisha Nolen

      Leisha Nolen answered on 12 Jun 2012:


      No, but I do use cells from humans that now can grow outside of humans. These kind of cells are really useful – they let us test things on a human cell, without actually using a human! I do not think many people would volunteer to do the tests we do on our cells. Many scientists use cells like this to ask their beginning questions. If the scientist finds something interesting then they will go see if the same is true when the cells are still in an animal. Usually the animal is a mouse or a rabbit. And then if that works they will finally get to see if it works in humans!

    • Photo: Seyyed Shah

      Seyyed Shah answered on 13 Jun 2012:


      I don’t use animals in my work, but like Leisha I do use Human cells. The cells are usually taken from patients, and they don’t cause any harm to the person.

      I think that it is a very difficult area of science. Some people feel that it is wrong to use animals, and others hold that without experiments on animals we would never be able to make important medicines and treatments for people who need them.

      I agree with Leisha, Anouk and Judith that sometimes working on animals is necessary. But, I don’t think I would ever be able to do it.

      Many scientists don’t have to use animals at all in their work. But, in many cases scientists buy stuff which is made by killing animals for use in their experiments or they work together with other scientists who do experiments on animals.

Comments