Biomedical research is a difficult process, to say the least. The human body is the most complex machine yet encountered, consisting of trillions of cells, each containing billions of molecules, many of which are composed of tens of thousands of atoms. These molecular machines perform their designated tasks with incredible precision, working within a stunningly interdependent environment, from the level of molecules communicating with each other over minute distances right up to entire organ systems interacting with one another. Biomedical researchers need tools capable of mimicking this level of complexity. The past century or so has seen an explosion in the availability of investigative tools – cell cultures, non-invasive imaging, computer models – these are all powerful techniques in humanity’s arsenal in the war against disease and ignorance, but none of them fully replicates the intricacy of a living organism.
Without the ability to use animals in their research, scientists’ efforts would be massively hampered, not only in the direct development of new treatments, but also in the fundamental research which underpins all biomedical knowledge. For example, it was Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley’s work on the nerves of squid that elucidated the basis of nervous transmission; and it was John C Eccles’ work on cats’ spinal cords that first incontrovertibly demonstrated the nature of the synapse, earning him a share of the 1963 Nobel in Physiology, along with Hodgkin and Huxley. Without their work on animals, we would know far less about the workings of our own nervous systems and how to treat them.
