Dr Robin Lovell-Badge and Prof Emma Robinson respond to an editorial on using new technologies to reduce the reliance on animal experiments
I write in response to your editorial on animals in research (The Guardian view on animal testing: we can stop sacrificing millions of lives for our own health, 23 November). I am supportive of many aspects of the strategy to aid the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods to replace the use of animals. However, much of this is geared towards regulatory testing, where the goals are more readily achievable, rather than for discovery science.
All scientists working with animals in the UK have signed up to the 3Rs: replacement (developing alternatives), reduction and refinement. But we are definitely not ready to abandon research with animals, and for some disciplines we may never get to this. Advances in the ability to generate large amounts of detailed information about gene activity in cells and computer analysis have been amazing, but much of this is correlative. To prove causation still requires testing.
