Question: What made you want to help animals?

Lauren Laing answered on 11 Mar 2016:

I wanted to work with animals because I find them fascinating, there are so many awesome creatures that have been discovered and studied, and many more yet to be identified!! There are lots of ways in which the actions of humans threaten animals such as: accelerating climate change, changing land use for farming, polluting the environment, hunting animals to eat or for their products (fur, eggs, tusks, skin etc) and for pleasure. Animals can’t speak up and tell us they are ‘in trouble’, we only find this out by collecting data about them as scientists.

Mainly, I always wanted to work with fish. Fish are fascinating; they come in all shapes and sizes! Some are tiny (take a look at the Paedocypris progenetica – measuring just 7.9mm as adults), then there is the whale shark which is enormous with the largest ever weighed being 36,000 kg!!! Fish also survive is really extreme environments such as the Antarctic toothfish that can live in deep dark Antarctic waters and have special proteins called antifreeze glycoproteins in their blood which prevent their blood from freezing, and allow then to survive in the coldest waters on earth. There is the cavefish, which can survive in extremely dark environments and still find prey to survive! Some fish mate for life, others have large spawning behaviors, some migrate many thousands of miles, while others live in the same anemone for life!

I enjoy working on fish because I think they are really important. They provide an important food source for millions of people, and are at significant risk from stress or toxicity caused by exposure to chemicals such as pesticides used in farming, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plasticizers. These chemicals make it into the rivers via industrial waste pipes, rain water runoff from farms, water leeched from land fill sites, and from treated sewage water let out into the river systems. The important thing to remember, is fish are exposed to these chemicals in combination! And on top of this they experience other stress such as over fishing and the effects of climate change. Fish are also exciting because species such as the Zebrafish share as many as 85% of their genes with humans! This means we can also learn about how these chemicals could affect humans if they are found in our food or drinking water sources, so that we can help protect humans too.

I hope that the work my colleagues and I do to try and understand chemicals toxicity will help decision makers in parliament to make new policies which will regulate chemicals. It is important that chemicals which can cause harm are regulated, but also that chemicals which are safe alternatives are made available for farmers and industries such as the pharmaceutical industry. This is because we cannot live without some chemicals, like important medicines, and fertilizers used to make sure we can produce enough food to eat!