• Question: have your experiments harmed any animals?

    Asked by 834enqm47 to Dan, Jennifer, Luke, Martin, sakshisharda on 12 Mar 2018. This question was also asked by Meg, 637enqm38.
    • Photo: Martin Lindley

      Martin Lindley answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      no

      My university does not do any animal work at all

      in fact we do a lot of cell culture work so that we can put forward models that can be used instead of animal work in other universities.

    • Photo: Jennifer Paxton

      Jennifer Paxton answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      No, I don’t use animals in my work. Like Martin, I use cell culture which means I grown cells in the lab and use these to make mini tissues that behave just like real tissue and this helps us investigate things without having to harm animals in the process. Have a look at my profile and you can see the lab and some cells I’ve grown in it!

    • Photo: Sakshi Sharda

      Sakshi Sharda answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      In some of my experiments, I used fish to test how fast they escape predators. For this I had to show them a predator, so I guess they would have been scared or frightened. But it didn’t hurt them physically. It has been found that fish also feel pain, so I guess they would have been uncomfortable when they were faced with a predator.

    • Photo: Luke Williams

      Luke Williams answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      No, I have never done research with animals.

      In my current job I am responsible for animal welfare research, including looking at every single application for funding (from my organisation) where animals are used. Something that I am doing a lot of at the moment, as it happens.

      By law anyone wanting to use animals in research has to VERY clearly say why they want to use animals, how they intend to use them and why they cannot use any other system. They must say why they need the number of animals they say they need. They cannot just come up with a number – they must go through all the calculations and prove they need the animals. If they do not do this well enough, then they will not be able to do the research. There are also very strict laws and licenses required – the UK has some of the strongest laws in this area in the world.

    • Photo: Dan Gordon

      Dan Gordon answered on 14 Mar 2018:

      Absolutely not. We do not use animals any of our work.All of our work has to be ethical and safe.

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