• Question: do you use animals for your tests

    Asked by iluminati confirmed to Craig, Devon, Marta, Natalie, Nicholas on 8 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Nicholas Younger

      Nicholas Younger answered on 8 Mar 2017:


      Hey this is a very serious question coming from the real confirmed illuminati…I hope I’m safe!

      The answer is yes and no. I use mini-organs which I grow in the lab and one of the biggest reasons for this is that it means you don’t have to use animals as much for research, but you can still do experiments on something that is close to ‘the real thing’.

      I use some mice to make my mini organs, but after they’re made they last forever, so although I’m using animals I’m using a tiny number compared to what I would have had to use even 5 years ago to do the same experiments.

      It’s very important in scientific research to only use an animal if you absolutely have to and have no other way of doing an experiment. In fact there are awards handed out every year to researchers that reduce and replace their animal use.

      But there are still some things you have to use animals for – like testing medicines before they go into humans.

    • Photo: Marta Varela

      Marta Varela answered on 8 Mar 2017:


      No, Iluminati. I do my experiments in my computer. I have much more control of what is going on and I don’t harm anyone in the process.

      The downside is that you cannot reproduce in the computer all the complexity of a living organism, so you always have to make choices about what details to include in your computer experiment and what to leave out. If you are not careful, your computer may not reproduce the disease process you are trying to model that well and then it is not really useful.

    • Photo: Natalie Doig

      Natalie Doig answered on 10 Mar 2017:


      Hello illuminati. I do use animals in my research, mainly mice, because the brain so complicated we have to study the actual brain and we cannot do it any other way. If we could do it another way then we would definitely do that as it would be unethical not to.
      The use of animals in research is very regulated in the UK, and this is a good thing because it means that we have to justify why and how we are going to use animals.
      I think that it is important that we discuss the use of animals so that people are informed, and can make up their own minds.
      This is a really good website if you want to read a bit more about it
      http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/#schools

    • Photo: Craig O'Hare

      Craig O'Hare answered on 15 Mar 2017:


      I don’t use animals in my research as mice detect DNA virus infections in a different way to humans.

      Instead my research relies on skin cells we obtain from cancers and patient donations from plastic surgeries.

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