Scientists have strong ethical, economic and legal obligations to use animals
in research only when absolutely necessary. A lot of effort goes into trying
to reduce the numbers of animals used, and trying to develop new methods to
replace animals. As a result, the number of laboratory animals used annually
in the UK has halved in the last 30 years.
Non-animal methods - tissue culture, computer modelling, studies
of patients and populations - are very widely used. The word alternatives, often
used to describe these non-animal methods, can lead to confusion because these
methods are generally used alongside animal studies, not instead of them. All
these techniques have their place, and it is rarely possible to substitute one
for another.
Huntingdon has many in vitro techniques available.
There are stages in any research programme when it is not
enough to know how individual molecules, cells or tissues behave. The living
body is much more than just a collection of these parts, and the need to understand
how they interact or how they are controlled is essential. There are ethical
limits to the experiments that we can perform in people, so the only alternative
is to use the most suitable animal to study a particular disease or biological
function.
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