Nearly every medical advancement over the past 100 years involved animal research. And with the use of laboratory animals, scientists continue to discover innovative ways to cure diseases and treat illnesses. New medicines are giving millions of people longer, better, more active lives. In the near future, childhood leukemia, heart disease, cystic fibrosis and even HIV/AIDS could be just memories. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we all benefit from scientists’ work with animals every day. Here are just a few examples …
Asthma
Animal research played a vital role in scientists’ discovery of leukotrienes, the principal cause of the symptoms of allergic conditions. Studies in Guinea pigs and non-human primates led to the development of leukotriene-receptor antagonists, approved in 1998 as the first new type of asthma treatment in 20 years that is effective against both mild and severe forms of asthma. For more information, visit the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
HIV/AIDS
HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), infects 8,500 people worldwide each day and has proven to be a challenge to medical researchers. In recent years, scientists have discovered that a combination of drugs can delay the progress of the virus into and through infected cells. Now a diagnosis of HIV infection signifies a chronic disease, not a death sentence. The success of multiple drug therapy is in part attributable to researchers’ study of comparable viruses in animals. The blood test to detect HIV (essential for testing blood for transfusion as well as to diagnose the disease) was developed using animals and animals have been used to test every drug presently employed to treat HIV infection. For more information, visit the National Institute of Health - Office of AIDS Research.
Cancer
New cancer medicines account for over half of the gains we have made in cancer suvival rates since 1975. Overall, these medicines have contributed to a remarkable 10.7% of the increase in life expectancy at birth in the United States. Until recently, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy were the primary treatments for cancer. Now, thanks in large part to animal-based research, there is a new molecular and genetic understanding of tumor biology, which has lead scientists to treatments that set out to more directly kill cancer cells which are different in structure from normal cells. Use of this knowledge to design drugs that target abnormal cells is seen by many as the currently emerging future of cancer treatment.
The discovery that a combined protein caused leukemia in mice led to the development of Gleevec, the first molecularly targeted drug against cancer. It was approved by the FDA in 2001 for treatment of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). Gleevec is also used to treat a rare, previously incurable form of stomach cancer known as gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). Read more about Gleevec's development. For more information about cancer research, visit the National Cancer Institute.
Birth Defects
Every three and a half minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect in the United States. Studies with animals determined that folic acid, a B vitamin, helps prevent serious birth defects of the brain and spinal cord when taken before conception and early in pregnancy. Since this discovery, a public education campaign launched in 1992 has prevented thousands of such birth defects.
One in eight babies in the United States is born prematurely. The lungs in many of these babies are not fully developed and do not produce surfactant, a detergent-like substance produced in the lungs that aids in breathing. Since surfactant therapy became widespread in the 1980s, infant deaths due to respiratory distress syndrome have dropped by over two-thirds. Research continues to seek new, effective treatments to help premature babies grow to become healthy children . For more information, visit the March of Dimes.
Bioterrorism Medical Countermeasures
Animal research is a key component of work underway to address the threat that terrorists may one day use a biological agent in the United States. Currently, there are vaccine candidates in various stages of development for anthrax, plague, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, botulinum neurotoxins, and nearly a dozen other agents. Research on treatments focuses on the development of new antimicrobials and antitoxins, as well as the screening of existing antimicrobial agents to determine whether they would be effective against organisms that might be used by terrorists. For more information, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccines
In the early 20th century, most medical professionals suspected polio was an infectious disease, but had little proof. In 1908, Dr. Karl Landsteiner and Dr. Erwin Popper used extracts from the spinal cord of a boy who had died from polio to replicate the disease in monkeys. These experiments allowed the disease to be transmitted from monkey to monkey, providing an invaluable model of the disease that could be studied. In the 1950s, after 40 years of research using mice, rats and monkeys, polio vaccines were developed and used to treat the disease. Today, polio is virtually unknown in the United States and Europe and instances of polio have decreased significantly throughout third-world countries. Scientists believe the disease can be erradicated worldwide in the very near future. Read a personal reflection by Mrs. Albert Sabin about her husband's development of the oral polio vaccine.
The use of animals in research has also led to many other vaccines for once-common diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and meningitis. The late Dr. Maurice Hilleman of Merck & Co., who was responsible for developing three dozen vaccines, is credited with saving more lives than any other scientist in the past century. Read more about his research.
Antibiotics
In one of the most well-known animal experiments in history, Sir Howard Florey and his associates infected eight mice with a lethal dose of Streptococci (the bacteria that causes scarlet fever and tonsillitis) at Oxford University in 1940. Four mice were given penicillin and the remaining four mice were left untreated. The four mice treated with penicillin survived while the 4 untreated ones perished. This single experiment with just eight mice clearly defined the value of penicillin and was used to save thousands of soldiers’ lives during World War II. Some historians believe that the use of penicillin probably influenced the outcome of the war. Sir Florey's experiment set the stage for our modern-day understanding of the use of antibiotics to treat infectious diseases. Click here and here for more about Sir Florey's Nobel Prize-winning work.
The role of research animals remains critical in this arena as scientists develop newer, more effective antibiotics and combat emerging antibacterial resistance. For more information, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
High blood pressure
Before effective drugs were developed to treat high blood pressure (hypertension) in the 1950s, the most severe form of hypertension killed 9 in 10 sufferers within a year of diagnosis. Over the years, research with rats, rabbits, cats and mice led scientists to discover three types of drugs to treat both severe and mild cases of hypertension: ganglionic blocking drugs, beta-blockers and ace inhibitors. Today, researchers know that treating even moderate cases of hypertension can reduce stroke, heart disease and kidney disease. For more information, read this brochure from the Michigan Society for Biomedical Research (MISMR).
Organ transplants
Fifty years ago, Dr. Joseph E. Murray made history as he performed the first human kidney transplant at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. The surgery had been previously perfected in dogs. Today, transplants are serious but routine operations. Read more at the Research Defence Society website about how animal research helped scientists evolve transplant procedures. Research, including animal studies, must continue to develop a new generation of anti-rejection drugs with fewer side effects for transplant recipients.
And more...
Click here for a timeline of medical milestones made possible by scientists' use of laboratory animals. Courtesy of the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research (NJABR).
Click here for more examples of medical progress in which animal research has played a role.
