Laboratory animals. Why do we need them?

Animal research has been an extremely controversial topic for years. Despite the fact that the experiments and laboratories are carefully controlled, and the testing regulations are becoming more and more restrictive, the entire research provokes protests by environmentalists, animal organizations and celebrities. However, we cannot afford to completely abandon such research, because without it, medicine would be in a completely different place. What do we know from animal experiments?

1. On April 24, we celebrate the World Day of Laboratory Animals
2. Medicine owes a great deal to animal research
3. A large proportion of the Nobel Prizes in Medicine have been awarded for research involving animals
4. Without such experiments, there would be no vaccines, cancer drugs, insulin or inhalers needed by people suffering from asthma
5. Transplantology has developed through animal experiments
6. Thanks to studies on rats, it was possible to rebuild a broken spinal cord in humans
7. What else do we owe to laboratory animals?
8. More current information can be found on the Onet homepage

How many animals are used?

In Poland and the entire European Union, animal testing of cosmetics has been banned since 2004, and the sale of such cosmetics has been banned since 2009. Animals currently using are primarily for the so-called. basic research on the most important systems and organs, carried out “to acquire new knowledge of the basis of phenomena and observable facts”, animal experiments are also carried out for the diagnosis of diseases in humans and animals. About 20 percent. research is related to medicines, chemicals and plant protection products.

In Poland, 2012 animals were used for tests in 233, 2016 in 184 and 2017 in 155. The declining number of animal testing is related to the new regulations that have been in force since 2015.

Rules in force since 2015

The Act of 2015 on the protection of animals used for scientific or educational purposes says, inter alia, that it is unacceptable to perform the procedures if it is associated with severe pain, suffering or stress, which may be of a long-term nature and cannot be alleviated. Research with the use of great apes was also banned.

1. Animals in medicine

The act also highlights a very important 3R principle:

1. Replacement. Performing experiments only when alternative test methods cannot be used.
2. Reduction. Limiting the number of animals used in the procedure to the level necessary.
3. Refinement (Improvement). Keeping animals in environmental conditions appropriate to their species and using methods that minimize or eliminate pain and stress.

What animals are used for research?

According to the data from 2019, over 143 thousand people were used for scientific research in Poland. animals. Most of them were rodents – almost 110 thousand. (77%), mainly mice, rats, voles and guinea pigs. In addition, rabbits (over thousand), pigs, sheep, cattle, cats (12) and dogs (9).

Apart from mammals, these were birds (13, half of which were chickens), reptiles, amphibians and fish (mainly zebrafish).

1. Animals help survive the pandemic. There is evidence of this

Mice “have always” been the object of laboratory research, due to their genetic, anatomical and physiological features very similar to humans. They are an ideal object for research into genetic diseases.

Danio has become a popular research object due to its ease of maintenance and short cycle time, but most of all thanks to the genome and processes in an organism very similar to ours.

What are animals used for in laboratories?

Animal research is done for several reasons:

1. basic research related to oncology, cardiovascular, nervous, respiratory, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, immune, genitourinary and reproductive systems, as well as sensory organs and metabolism,
2. translational research, conducted to diagnose and treat diseases in humans or animals,
3. research on the quality, effectiveness and safety of the use of drugs and foodstuffs,
4. protection of the natural environment in the interests of human or animal health,
5. research aimed at preserving the species,
6. forensic research.

Benefits through animal experiments

– Animal experiments are today an important element of learning about the physiology of the human body and searching for ways to prevent pathologies. Research on animal models concern, inter alia, malformations in children, the formation of neoplasms or neurodegenerative diseases of old age, such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s diseases. There are also new infectious diseases, such as Ebola; the antidote to it was found quite quickly, thanks to animal trials – said prof. Andrzej Wróbel from the Institute of Experimental Biology M. Nencki PAN.

1. Scientists: There has never been such progress in MS research

What do we owe to animal research?

1. Antidepressants were discovered in animal research
2. Insulin – the isolation of this hormone, necessary for millions of people suffering from diabetes, was possible thanks to experiments on rabbits and dogs
3. Without animal studies, we would not have vaccines against polio, tuberculosis and meningitis
4. Animal studies have also led to the development of a vaccine against HPV
5. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, but thanks to tests on mice by Howard Flore and Ernest Chain, it was possible to give it to humans
6. Research in mice made a breakthrough in the treatment of leukemia, the most common cancer in children, in the 70s.
7. The HIV epidemic was stopped by testing in mice and monkeys
8. Asthma inhalers are the result of research on rabbits
9. Breast cancer-related mortality has been severely reduced with the invention of aromatase inhibitors (a study in mice) and tamoxifen (a study in rats)
10. Triptans – Medicines to help treat migraines were developed through research in dogs and cats
11. Transplantology would not be possible without animal research

The olfactory bulbs of the rats brought the paralyzed person to his feet

One of the most spectacular achievements of medicine in recent years, resulting from animal research, was an operation performed in 2012 by Dr. Paweł Tabakow from the University Clinical Hospital in Wrocław. As a result, the patient with a torn spinal cord had sensory and motor functions in the legs.

1. Successful innovative surgery on a patient with a torn spinal cord

Tabakov used the properties of the olfactory glial cells, which are located in the olfactory bulbs located in the brain. Their existence was discovered in 1985 by prof. Geoffrey Raisman, examining rats. Raisman suspected that these cells could repair a damaged spinal cord, a Polish-Bulgarian neurosurgeon proved it three decades later.

Anyway, Tabakov himself, before undertaking an operation on a human, had previously performed several hundred such operations on rats.

Animal Research and COVID-19

Recently, there has been information about several studies that have shown that monoclonal antibodies can be an effective treatment for the coronavirus. Administration of a cocktail of these antibodies dramatically reduces the risk of severe complications of COVID-19, thus minimizing the need for hospitalization and the risk of death.

Obtaining monoclonal antibodies is a multi-step, complicated process in which mice are used. In turn, before using them in the human body, prior non-clinical tests on animals are necessary.

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