Question: have you ever used animals in your experiments

Henry Darch answered on 11 Nov 2021: last edited 11 Nov 2021 2:23 pm

Yes, that is a big part of my work. I have a special licence and continuous training to be able to safely work with them. A massive part of medical and biological research is to use what we call ‘animal models’ of humans in order to test out ideas of new medicines before we go on to test them in clinical trials. Also, surgeons often use animals such as pigs to practice their lifesaving surgeries (such as heart transplants), before they are allowed to do it on a person.

Of course, the use of animals is a very sensitive and controversial topic, and just because I do work with animals, doesn’t mean that I agree with all of the experiments that some people do with them. I highly recommend the following website, which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving the standards of using animals in research, and provides the framework under which all European research now follows. https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/the-3rs