Role Of Animal Experiments Research Articles

Learning the Ropes: Role of animal experiments in hypertension research

Learning the Ropes: Role of animal experiments in hypertension research

Animal Models and Animal Experimentation in the Development of Deep Brain Stimulation: From a Specific Controversy to a Multidimensional Debate.

In this article, we explore a specific controversy about animal experimentation and animal models in the recent history of deep brain stimulation (DBS), and we question its ramifications. DBS development intertwines clinical practice with fundamental research and stands at the crossroads of multiple legacies. We take up the various issues and controversies embedded in this rarely addressed dispute, from a standpoint that combines socio-anthropological and legal aspects. Our starting point is a debate on the role of animal experimentation in the development of DBS between Jarrod Bailey, a researcher promoting the abolition of animal experimentation, and Alim Louis Benabid, Marwan Hariz, and Mahlon DeLong, three key figures in the area of DBS and neuroscience. By clarifying the positions of the different protagonists and retracing the issues raised in these discussions, our objective is to show how this specific debate has extended from its initial space and how it provides an object of study with heuristic scope. We first present this partially polemic discussion about the history of DBS, and its link with a more general debate on the validity and use of animal models and the need for animal experiments. Then, we raise the issue of the relations and interactions between experiments on animals and on humans in the logics of biomedical innovation. The third step is to situate the discussion within the wider framework of opposition towards animal experimentation and the promotion of animal’ rights. Finally, combining these interweaved issues, possible implications emerge regarding the future of DBS. We show that behind these several controversies lie the question of translational research and the model of medicine upheld by DBS. We describe how the technology contributes to blurring the lines between research (fundamental, preclinical and clinical research) and care, as well as between humans and animals as substrates and objects of knowledge. The dynamics of DBS future development might then become a point of convergence for neuroscientists and animal rights defenders’ interests.

Post graduate survey and evaluation of role of animal experimentation, status and relevance of current syllabus, and challenges for alignment with requirements of the pharmaceutical industry

Background: The current scenario has brought the validity of animal experimentation (AE) under scrutiny. The requirements from an academician in the pharmaceutical industry are not sufficiently handled. A gnawing need was felt to conduct a study amongst the post graduate MD pharmacologists regarding the role of AE, relevance of current syllabus and challenges faced in the pharmaceutical industry. Methods: This questionnaire-based survey was carried out amongst post graduate (PG) residents pursuing MD pharmacology. Students were enrolled via social contacts, email, and in 2 workshops/conferences. The survey questionnaire consisted of 20 questions in total. 47 completed questionnaires were returned from a total 60. The data was collected in an anonymous fashion to avoid bias. Results: From the study we observe that PG residents were aware of the current MCI/University guidelines on AE. Only 42.5% (n=20) of the volunteers replied that they had access to simulator software. Participants were of the opinion that the current PG teaching curriculum is ill-adapted to tackle challenges encountered in the pharmaceutical industry. Compulsory industry rotation (31.9%) was one of the favoured suggested changes. Overall satisfaction with MD pharmacology was obtained in the positive. Conclusions: We conclude that the importance of AE in pharmacology is irrefutable, although advent of alternatives is the direction to be headed in. The curriculum is archaic at times, thus warrants changes. Preparedness for pharmaceutical industry is also low and needs to be addressed.

Welche Rolle spielten Tierexperimente bei der Aufklärung des Kindbettfiebers durch Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis?

Welche Rolle spielten Tierexperimente bei der Aufklärung des Kindbettfiebers durch Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis?

Training the Animal Doctor: Caring as a Clinical Skill

The veterinary profession requires that students are well trained in clinical skills and have a solid basis of theoretical knowledge. Furthermore, the guardians of patients and society as a whole, expect the veterinarian to treat patients with care and compassion. The concept of care as a central skill is not always emphasised in veterinary education, but a caring approach may better enable the veterinarian to diagnose and treat his patients. This presentation discusses the reasons to look upon care and compassion as essential clinical skills to be developed and prioritised within veterinary education. The different teaching tools and approaches that are, in the author's opinion, best suited to develop such skills are discussed, as well as teaching methods that may be counter-productive to these objectives. In particular, the role of animal experiments within education is challenged, and their role in potentially limiting the number of motivated students wanting to enter veterinary education and the profession is discussed.

Animal experimentation and scientific knowledge: a thought style?

Animal experimentation, besides a research method extensively applied in the production of scientific knowledge, is also considered essential to science and with undeniable historical relevance in advances in human health. In this survey, a questionnaire was applied to a group of researchers involved with research based on non-animal models (n =18), and to another group involved with research based on animal models (n =18). The data analysis was grounded in Ludwik Fleck (1896 -1961) epistemological assumptions. The results suggested that there are at least two thought styles operating in consonance on the same research problem (advances in human health conditions) with significantly different conceptions not only concerning the research practices involved, but also the historical conceptions related to the role of animal experimentation.

Role of animal experiments in assessing drug safety needs clarification

EDITOR,—R J Powell's editorial on thalidomide highlights the misleading role of animal experiments in assessments of the safety of drugs for human …

Animal rights activism and animal welfare concerns in the academic setting: levels of activism and the perceived importance of research with animals.

Past research suggests that public support for the use of animal models as means to improve the human condition is present but many individuals have expressed ambivalence. In the present study, various sectors of the academic community (students and faculty) as well as the general population, were surveyed to assess their positions on the need for, and value of animal research, the value of psychological research in which animals are employed, and the respondents' consummatory habits. The results suggested that more information needs to be provided about the role of animal experimentation, including a discussion of the benefits produced by using animals to answer psychological questions.

The future of medical research using animals

The Research Defence Society (RDS) in 1991 organized a conference, which was held on the premises of the Royal Society in London, and invited several of the good and the great in biomedical research to speak on the subject of animal experimentation. This conference is one of a number of attempts made over the last few years to explain to the informed and sometimes to the general public the role, value and problems of scientific research using animals. These ‘explanations’ have ranged from apologetic defences to proud boastings. The proceedings volume of the RDS conference should, perhaps, be described as an example of ‘quiet pride in real achievement’. There are five main papers on the role of animal experimentation in the future of medicine, in fundamental studies, in the discovery of drugs and in neuroscience and cancer research. Only two short papers (5 pages in total) are devoted directly to the ethical implications of using animals; there are, however, a number of ethical points made in the main papers and in particularly in the most interesting thirteen pages of recorded discussion. The volume has a useful index.

Student booklets on animal research

There has, up to now, been little in the way of sound informative literature on the employment of animals in biomedical research which could be recommended as an education resource for use in schools. This deficit has largely been overcome by the publication of two booklets: The Search for Health and Animal Experiments. The first of these has been put out by the Research for Health Charities Group and is a broad account of the role of research in developing modem treatments for human diseases. A serious attempt is made to explain, in as simple terms as possible, the underlying biology of disease processes and at relevant points in the explanations, the role of animal experimentation is discussed. There is little coverage of the control of animal usage.

3. Animal experimentation leading to the development of drugs benefiting human beings and animals.

A CURSORY review of any modern textbook of pharmacology or medicine will attest to the many drugs currently available to benefit mankind in his struggle to eradicate and control disease. Although there are notable exceptions, by and large, these drugs are beneficial to both human beings and other animal species.20'21 This is not unexpected when one appreciates the fact that the cardinal signs and symptoms of disease, such as pain, fever, inflammation, edema, and so on, frequently occur in all animal species as a result of disease. Indeed, often the causative agents of disease are identical in human beings and other animal species and, in such instances, drugs which prevent, alleviate, or cure diseases of man are usually equally help. ful to animals. The similarity in the signs, symptoms, and treatment of a wide variety of infectious diseases in human beings and other animal species serve to illustrate this point well. The main purpose of this paper is to describe some of the animal experimental work which contributed to the discovery and development of drugs benefiting human beings and other animal species. Since animal experimentation has occupied a focal position in all research leading to useful drugs, one will appreciate that it will be necessary to limit the discussion to certain aspects of this broad, interesting topic. With this in mind, an attempt will be made to relate briefly the nature of the animal investigations which were instrumental in the development of certain major classes of drugs widely used in human and veterinary medicine today. To demonstrate clearly the many and varied ways in which animal experimentation served in the development of drugs, the subject matter will be presented under five separate headings, as follows: Role of Animal Experimentation in the Development of Drugs Useful in Diseases of Known Etiology; Role of Animal Experimentation in the Development of Drugs Useful in Diseases of Unknown Etiology; Animal Experimentation Leading to Drugs Useful in Regulating Organ Function; Animal Experimentation as a Guide to the Isolation of Hormones and Other Biological Principles; Animal Experimentation and the Safety and Pharmacodynamic Action of Drugs.