• Question: Do you use animals in your research and how do you feel about it?

    Asked by CookieMonster to Alex, Ali, Kerry, Philip, Theo on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by alibaba, 573eura36, Billie624, Unicorn lady333, charlotte N-S, canislupus, Molly_2507, Luke_F, freyawilliams, Edith.
    • Photo: Alison Thomson

      Alison Thomson answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Unfortunately I do use animals – I work with mice. There are really strict rules and regulations around working with animals to make sure that they don’t suffer, and we don’t do anything inhumane to them. I look at mice that have motor neurone disease, but I don’t do any experiments on them when they’re alive, only after they have died.

      Working with animals is a huge part of science, because we can’t learn everything from just working with cells that we grow in a dish (although we do learn a lot from these cells anyway!).

      I hope this answers your question!

    • Photo: Kerry O'Shea

      Kerry O'Shea answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      No, I don’t work with animals, I would be very surprised to see them in my lab!

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      No, I don’t.
      Animals are use in research in all sorts of different ways and also now there are rather strict laws on what can and can’t be done. So, in theory at least, they can’t be treated cruelly, they mustn’t suffer.
      Now, of course, generally speaking the problem is that to test, say, a new drug, we have to try it out on, say, a mouse to see if it works and to test that it doesn’t do anything bad that we hadn’t thought of. And so probably some mice die, but hopefully as humanely as possible.
      So, wh gives me the right to do that? Nobody. But now suppose my son or daughter has a deadly disease and the only way to find a cure involves experiements on mice …

Comments