• Question: Do any of You harm Animals In your work...Can it effect there life spam, What do you do with the animals?

    Asked by Maddie<3 to Alex, Ali, Kerry, Philip on 19 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Alison Thomson

      Alison Thomson answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      What do you mean by harm animals? There are really strict rules and regulations that come with working with animals which make sure that they do not suffer. Before anyone can do any experiments with animals they have to submit their planned experiment to an ethical committee who will decide if it is ok to do.
      If the experiment is ethically approved, in most situations the animal is asleep or anaesthetised so that they are not distressed during the procedure.

      Good question!

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      Only poor undergraduates who spend sleepless nights struggling to understand my lectures ;^)
      Oh certainly it affects their life span (spam is something else), all those sleepless nights!
      I try to help them pass their exams and get a degree – then they’re on there own.

    • Photo: Alex Pool

      Alex Pool answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      I don’t work on animals any more but I used to. As Ali says there are really strict rules about what you can and can’t do. And animal research is only done as a last resort. In the UK all animal research works on what we call the 3Rs – replace (use something other than animal research if possible, refine (any techniques you do use on animals make as good as possible so the animal experiences as little discomfort as possible) and reduce (use as few animals as possible).

    • Photo: Kerry O'Shea

      Kerry O'Shea answered on 20 Nov 2014:

      I don’t work with animals in my research but it would be nice to have a lab dog to keep me company sometimes 🙂

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