Download Booklet

Within our time at Latrobe we had the
opportunity of an interview with Dr Christopher
Adda, a scientist indevelopment of a malaria
vaccine antigen. With him we learnt all about
the Latrobe and the committee, the way animals
are treated, how they are tested on and the
regulations.
At Latrobe the animals are kept in what has been
described to be better then any other place for
an animal. The animals light, food and
temperature is closely monitored by scientists.
They are kept in cages/ pens that are as big as
a small office. Dr Christopher Adda explained
that animals would actually be happier and
healthier in a lab than in the average home.
“There is certainly still a need” Dr Christopher
Adda explains, “if the testing is going to help
us in some way in the future then it is all
worth it, even if the tests are only slightly
progressed its one step closer to helping
people in the future.”
“we do animals because we could never test on
people.”
The ld50 test is done at Latrobe, this test
identifies how much of a curtain drug
people can take before getting a
reaction to it this test is done on mice.
Of course research is undertaken at
Latrobe Chris Adde explained the
process of giving a mouse a tumour or
diabetes of some sort then scientists
designing a drug and giving it to the
mouse to see if the drug has any effect
on the mouse and to find out if the drug
is helping the illness
If scientist were wanting to find a cure for a
curtain disease, they would need to find an
animal with a genetic line of the disease or
they would have to give the animal the
disease e.g. Finding tumour cells then putting
it into a mouse letting it grow then giving the
mouse the drug they have been working on
then monitoring it closely to see how the
drug effects the tumour
Class A: People with qualifications in Veterinary
Science
 Class B: A scientist with substantial recent
experience in scientific or teaching activities.
 Class C: Someone who is committed to and
established experience in furthering the welfare of
animals.
 Class D: A person that has never had an affiliation
with the University or the use of animals for scientific
research or teaching purposes.
 There must be an equal amount of people in each
class at each meeting.






‘The Australian code of practice for
the care and use of animals for
scientific purposes’
It is a nationally recognised
document.
The code requires animal testing to
be:
› Valid
› Humane
› Justifiable
› Considerate
It also requires teachers to actively
seek an alternative to animal testing
It describes the responsibilities of
people who use animals for research
or teaching, the responsibilities of the
animal ethics committee’s and the
responsibilities of research and
teaching establishments.




You have to fill out an application form and send it in to the
committee.
The form is almost eight pages long.
Even if you would like to do a study on animals in the wild to see
what they eat or how the species is reproducing, you must fill out
the same form as if you were testing cancer treatments on them.
In the application you must fill out questions such as:
› Project Title
› Chief investigator
› Primary contact
› Duration of project
› Project category: teaching, Research, Production of Biological
Products
› Product Testing
› Diagnosis
› Training in procedural Techniques


The La Trobe AEC gets roughly Ten applications for animal
experiments in laboratories. Per year, although it looks over 80+
applications about other tests regarding animals.
The ethics committee is sent applications for tests such as making
possum houses in the Bush, looking at lifestyles of animals in the
wild, etc.
A change is taking
place in laboratories
across the world
regarding the use of
animals in drug
development. The first
realistic software models
of human and animal
organs are starting to
emerge
A computer simulation is a computer program, or network of computers, that
attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. Computer
simulations have become a useful part of technology
“More than 100
million animals
every year”
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-forexperimentation/default2.aspx

Not nearly enough is
known for computer
models to simulate all
the interactions of
the extremely
complex biological
systems and
functions of a whole,
living animal in the
foreseeable future.