© Nuffield Foundation 2011© Nuffield Foundation 2011

Advancing scientific knowledge

Studying disease and developing medicines

Assessing the safety of chemicals

Breeding

Destroying a gene in mice and studying how this affects their development and behaviour.

Developing a vaccine for polio using mice.

Testing a weedkiller on rats and dogs.

Animals need to be bred with special characteristics for use in research.

What is animal research?

© Nuffield Foundation 2011© Nuffield Foundation 2011

Advancing scientific knowledge

Destroying a gene in mice and studying how this affects their development and behaviour

Studying disease and developing medicines

Developing a vaccine for polio using mice

Assessing the safety of chemicals

Testing a weedkiller on rats and dogs

Breeding

Animals need to be bred with special characteristics for use in research

So chemicals don’t do any harm to people who use them.

To gain an understanding of how genes work. This might help develop treatments for genetic disorders.

So vaccines can be developed to protect people from illness

So lots of animals with the same characteristics are available for research

Why?

© Nuffield Foundation 2011© Nuffield Foundation 2011

Advancing scientif ic

knowledge 32% (939,766)

Studying disease and developing

medicines 27% (781,162)

Assessing the safety of

chemicals 4% (103,822)

Breeding 35% (1,027,150)

Other 2%(44,289)

Number of animals used for different types of research in 2005