• Question: do you work with animals? and if so do you test on them?

    Asked by ineedchocolate to Chris, Kay, Kerstin, Lorna, Liv on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Kerstin Zechner

      Kerstin Zechner answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Yes, we use small worms known as Caenorhabditis elegans. They’re really quite small, only a few milimetres long and are found in the soil. Most of the testing we do does involve killing them to isolate DNA or RNA from them. Because they are so small and don’t have a central nervous system, most people don’t seem to have an issue with using these worms for research.

    • Photo: Kay Penicud

      Kay Penicud answered on 18 Mar 2010:

      Yes, I sometimes work with mice. I don’t test on them, what I do is look to see how them lacking certain genes could cause them to develop cancer.

    • Photo: Olivia Hibbitt

      Olivia Hibbitt answered on 19 Mar 2010:

      Hey ineedchocolate,

      some of my work is with animals. Animal testing is a pretty overused term these days! I think you might mean do I test drugs on animals….if that is the case then no I don’t. I try to use gene therapy to cure mice that have the condition that I study.

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