• Question: do you not think animals would react differently to the drug doses you give in comparison to humans?

    Asked by shannonjs3 to Sudhin, Sergio, Katie, Frances, Diarmuid, Aoife on 19 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Katie Fala

      Katie Fala answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Great question! Yes, it’s fair to say that the size, anatomy and physiology of animals differs quite a bit from humans. Animal studies can still be necessary to bridge the gap between in vitro labwork and trialling it directly in humans. The dosage is generally normalised to milligram of drug per kilogram of body weight; to give an example, that means a rat weighing 0.5 kg would receive one hundredth of the dose that would be given to a human weighing 50 kg.

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