A scientist's perspective - Animal rights

On nice days around campus it is nearly impossible to walk down the street without being accosted by someone from one group or another wanting you to support their cause. So let's get this straight. I'm all for gay rights, planned parenthood and the red cross. Just leave me alone when I'm trying to get from point A to point B.

Warning: Science rant approaching.

A couple of weeks ago the flavor of the day was an animal rights group handing out pamphlets about animal research. At first I walked past, but on my return trip I took a pamphlet out of curiosity. It was far from well designed, but it got their points across I suppose. The gist of the message was that animals used in research are lonely, mistreated, and abused. Additionally, they are unnecessary due to "alternative research methods." I want to clear this up. There is no adequate alternative research method. None, nine, zip. Yes, we can test new drugs/antibiotics/etc. on cell culture. Yes, we know a lot about biochemistry and drug metabolism and gene networks. And yes, we can make predictions based on that information. Predictions. If you wish to be treated with a drug that is predicted to work, by all means, have at it. I won't even get started on studying diseases in animals. That's a whole other story.

So here's the deal. Say someone has found a new chemical that they suspect might treat cancer based on the chemical structure, it's similarity to previously developed drugs, and a fancy computer system that analyzes potential drugs and drug targets based on decades of research. The next step is to test it on cell cultures. For non scientists, a cell culture is generally a single cell type that has been immortalized, which means they will continue to grow (read: replicate) in the laboratory indefinitely as long as they are provided with appropriate nutrients. Cell cultures are generally created from cancerous cells as growing/replicating is what they do best. So while these cells were originally liver cells, or heart cells, or brain cells, they are not normal cells. This is because healthy cells don't generally like to grow and replicate outside their normal environment (i.e. the human body). Cell cultures can tell us a lot about what a new drug might do in the body, but I stress, might.

See, cell cultures don't have liver enzymes and all sorts of other bits of human biochemistry. A lot of drugs do one thing in cell culture, but something completely different in the human body because the human body is complex. The human body is not just one cell type. When you eat something, it goes to your stomach which is highly acidic. Well, a pill you swallow follows the same path. The acids in your stomach may modify the drug or change how it works. Likewise, your liver's primary function is to take up foreign chemicals and process them. Often, this means the liver enzymes will modify the drug you just swallowed in an attempt to get rid of it, but sometimes this has side effects. For example, part of the process for getting tylenol out of your body is for the liver to modify it to make it easier to get rid of. As a side effect, a fraction of tylenol is changed into a chemical called NAPQI which damages healthy cells. Normally, the liver can handle the small bit of NAPQI and get rid of it too, but if you take too much tylenol, you produce too much NAPQI and this can cause liver damage. This effect would never been seen in a cell culture, however, as they do not have livers and would not make that byproduct at all.

Animal use in research is highly regulated, though these regulations differ by country and (to some extent) by institution. I will say that my experience is academic. I don't know the procedures in the industrial setting. In academia, however, you can't simply say "I wonder if..." and go inject chemical X into a bunch of mice and see what happens. It is a weeks long process of writing proposals, justifying the experiment, and providing background information to a panel of reviewers consisting of community members, veterinarians, and other scientists and waiting for approval. In addition, there are strict regulations on how animals are treated designed to minimize pain and discomfort. Unfortunately, animal research is necessary in order to provide any reasonable sense of security in chemical testing and even more necessary in studying disease and infections because human beings generally don't like being test subjects and they are too damn complex anyways. So yes, animals are cute. Yes, they feel pain. Yes, I've killed mice in the name of science. No, I don't enjoy it. But there is currently no alternative to using animals in research.