What are effects of performing scientific tests on animals for medical research and environmental studies?
Assays have become a routine part of modern medical, environmental, pharmaceutical, forensic and many other
businesses. Some assays are in high demand commercially and become copyrighted as intellectual property or process
patents and are newsworthy. In a biological assay or bioassay, a live animal or tissue is used to measure the effects of a
substance on a living organism. Bioassays are essential in developing new drugs and in eco-toxicity studies. In both
cases, the test procedures measure the nature or potency of a substance by studying the effects on living matter.
“Research could lead to new cancer assay, aid both
dogs and humans”
MUSC HOLLINGS CANCER CENTER
Headline from June 5, 2014, Science Daily
“The Drug Discovery & Screening Shared Resource at MUSC
provides a mechanism for faculty, postdocs and students to
discover chemical agents that affect targets that they
hypothesize to be involved in human diseases. This shared
resource provides the following resources: expertise for
assay development; chemical libraries; instrumentation for
high-throughput screening, including robotic liquidhandling and state-of-the-art cell imaging, and technical
support for screening. The compounds can then be used as
biochemical probes of the functions of the target proteins,
and/or developed into new therapeutic agents. This
provides opportunities for new research funding, patents
and technology commercialization.”
Veterinary researchers at Oregon State University
have identified a unique group of proteins that
indicate the presence of transitional cell carcinoma -the most common cause of bladder cancer -- and
may lead to a new assay which could better diagnose
this disease in both dogs and humans. Bladder
cancer is particularly common in some dog breeds,
such as collies, sheepdogs and terriers, but is rarely
diagnosed in animals before it has spread
significantly. Some assays exist to detect it in
humans, but they often have a high-number of falsepositive identifications.
Medical University of South Carolina - Charleston
http://hcc.musc.edu/research/resources/drugdiscovery.htm
Clinigene Launches a Best-in-class Biomarker Assay for Measuring "ABCA1 Specific Cholesterol Efflux"… to support
developing cholesterol lowering drugs
Headline from June 9, 2014, Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/09/bc-clinigene-cholesterol-idUSnPnmWBty+4c+PRN20140609
Daphnia Magna
One way to test for the presence of toxic compounds in a water sample is a bioassay. In a bioassay, a living organism serves as a
detector for toxins—the same way canaries were used in coal mines to detect invisible toxic gases. Daphnia magna is a freshwater
crustacean that can be used in a bioassay to monitor water quality. Because of their size, heart rate, and similar circulatory system to
humans, Daphnia can also be used to observe physiological changes induced by various substances, including common noncontrolled drugs or toxicant solutions. Concepts of dose response and critical levels are important in these studies.
There are many advantages in using Daphnia magna as an experimental animal for such purposes. They are small, reaching a size of
five mm, so that a great many can be reared in a small space. They have a relatively short life span, which reaches a maximum of
about two months when they are reared at 25°C. They mature early, giving birth to young within their first week of life. After their first
brood, they give rise to new broods every two or three days throughout the remainder of their lives. An average of twenty or more
young may be produced in each brood. Each female who lives to a ripe old age can bear four hundred or more offspring. Daphnids
are representatives of a class of animals that serve as food for many fish, especially while the fish are young. Fish do not remain in
water where their food supply has been depleted. Daphnids would be affected if there was something toxic added to the water,
therefore fish would leave and the Daphnia would die. For these reasons Daphnia prove satisfactory for eco-toxicity testing purposes.