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Among the many uncomfortable truths you may have to come to terms with when working in biomedical research, one of the most controversial ones is that you will probably need to do animal experimentation.

There’s a stigma around this topic that extends even to the scientists actively working on it. You are not supposed to talk about it. You’re supposed to be very careful when you do. There are audiences where you might talk about it, and others where you absolutely should never.

It’s a heavy topic, that’s for sure.

But will it ever be demystified if we don’t discuss it?

Our history is polluted with horrific science experiments done on animals. In the 1870s, physiologists could justify cutting parts of live frogs’ (and other animals) brains to investigate the role of different sections of the brain in the function of the body. Later, frog hearts were used to prove that the nervous system communicated with chemical impulses rather than only electrical ones.

All this panoply of experiments no doubt contributes to the stigma surrounding this type of work.

While I cannot speak for the entirety of the science community, I can speak about my experience with this type of work.

As a biologist, I was introduced to dissection of animal parts with a cow heart in high school (biology classes were fun!). This isn’t mandatory, but you are encouraged to participate if it doesn’t go against your religious values.

I’m not going to lie; it was not an easy class. On one side, it made it a lot easier to understand how the heart worked to be able to look at it and see the different chambers/valves/veins, on the other side, we were encouraged to remember we were touching something that had belonged to another living being, and we should respect it as such.

Following soon to a bachelor’s degree in biology, my first year was painted with classes about different types of animals. Since my degree valued hands-on training, I obviously ended up having to do a lot of dissections, from invertebrates to vertebrates.

Let me tell you, I do not recommend the dissection of snails. All other invertebrates are tolerable, but it’s been more than six years, and I can still smell that classroom.

Alas, I digress.

You might be thinking, so many animal lives lost in the name of teaching a bunch of students who will likely never need to know that again. And you would be correct. In part, there’s a lot of those classes that I don’t use in my scientific career. However, having those classes meant I was being taught, from the very beginning, to respect the lives that were being used to make me a better researcher, which I don’t consider a total waste in this career.

While we weren’t always told where the animals came from, it was often emphasised that these animals were not being killed for us. For example, one of the best (although slightly traumatizing) classes I had was about Mammal Conservation, where we got to work with a conservation group with a partnership with the local hunters.

You see, in Portugal, rabbits have very few natural predators, so they tend to grow uncontrollably, which is terrible for the ecosystem. To combat this problem, very strict guidelines were put in place that allow a degree of legal hunting (therefore discouraging illegalities) with an established protocol to allow researchers to use the animals to study the population.

This work allowed us to have real life experience on how animal work is managed to minimise the lives lost.

One of the most powerful things I was taught about animal work was that we aren’t simply doing experiments. We are learning about another living creature. Many discoveries that allowed the development of therapies for humans, have allowed the same ones to be applied to animals, which has saved countless lives.

It is not an ideal solution and while I cannot speak for every scientist out there (and in the grand scheme of things have only really met a small percentage of them), I don’t believe anyone working in the field takes this commitment lightly.

While I was not inexperienced with animal work, due to my studies, and later my first lab work (which revolved around the study of genes in the fruit fly), when I moved to Ireland for my PhD I had yet to work with mice.

Which is, in a way, the big dreadful type of studies. While I’ll save you the boring details of over a year and a half of training, I will say the following:

My training consisted of around three months of theoretical training. While this part is the ‘boring bit’ all my teachers made sure to instil in us a deep understanding of current legislation (closely enforced by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA)). And besides a respect for all the lives that are used in our studies, an understanding of how to design these studies. You see, every scientist needs to follow the 3R’s rule.

• Replace - Any time replacement for animal use should be considered and implemented.
• Reduce - studies should be designed in a way that minimizes the number of animals used
• Refine - research should be conducted in a way that minimizes the suffering, pain and distress caused to the animal.

It’s also important to mention that, in my experience, you aren’t just assumed to know what you’re doing. There are protocols in place that force you to go through people who know a lot about animal welfare, to guarantee you are implementing the best practices.

Furthermore, before I was ever allowed in our animal facility, I had to have an induction meeting that consisted in making us aware of incidents reported all throughout the world where malpractice resulted in the suffering of animals.

As an animal lover, those were tough videos to watch.

Only after all of this was I allowed into the facility to shadow the post-doc I would end up working with to visualize all the techniques I would need to do in the future. This happened for months before I was ever allowed to start hands-on training.

And even then, you do not start by doing techniques. You get acquainted with the animals. You learn how to get them used to human handling, how to pick them up and how to care for them.

There is, overall, a culture of keeping these animals as happy and healthy as we can.

Aside from the researchers, I should mention that there are experienced technicians in the building that make sure the animals are healthy and being well cared for in an independent manner from the researchers.

Overall, is the use of animals for medical research an uncomfortable reality?

Yes.

But it is worth learning and understanding that we don’t treat animals as innate objects anymore. As a rule, researchers are taught the value of any creature’s life and to treat it with the care and respect it is due at any point of the project.

While I hope in the future there will be better ways to study and develop new treatments for biomedical research, for now, I can only try to make sure I adhere to the current rules established by the HPRA and the staff that works with these animals every day.

About the author

Tânia Dias is a PhD student studying childhood Leukaemia in the Bond Group at SBI.