Selecting Species for Pharmaceutical and Medical Research

Abstract

The choice of animal species is also conditioned by the type of researches and on the organs we are willing to investigate. Indeed, some species are suitable for certain types or experiments [5] whereas others are not. Here in some illustrative examples are given. In neuroscience using monkeys, and due to the great similarity between them and humans, has allowed us to better understand the brain properties and the cognitive functions based on observations done on monkey’s brains [6,7]. For the neural properties of the visual functions, cats represent a good choice since they have specific vision characteristics [811]. Furthermore, cats are also suitable for electrophysiological studies. Tree shrew, a species believed to be biologically between insectivore and primates with specific evolutionary properties [12], is also used in neurobiological researches [1315]. In addition to its low cost, its brain has a similar structure to the human brain. Mice [16,17] are commonly used due to their brains properties in term of neurobiological functions and the well tolerance they have towards the equipments used in recording. In genetics, due to their relatively simple genome and the short duration of life cycle, bacteria are used [18,19] to study the mutations and the gene interactions but the bacterial usage in genetics is limited. For instance, mammalians provide a better multi-cellular and multi-organs environment to study interactions between genes and cell signals. Moreover, results obtained with mammalians would be closer to the human profile than those obtained with bacterial studies. In pharmacology, for example when evaluating steroids, and since the steroids have specific blood transporters that transport also the endogenous steroid hormones, the animal selected for such study should have similar hormones to mimic the pharmacokinetic conditions. For more precise or local studies we may use isolated parts of organs or even insects. Drosophila is an insect with a nervous system that include many of the human neurotransmitters which made this fly a suitable insect for neurobiological and