Tag: Rats

Animal Research Leads to Stunning Advance in Nanotech Medicine

It’s long been a staple of science fiction — cure a disease such as diabetes by injecting extremely tiny nanotech machines into the body that will automatically regulate insulin level. Now, however, thanks to medical research with animals, this scenario is now science fact and likely to head to tests in human beings within a few years.

Bioengineering researcher Tejal Desai has managed to create a nanotech device that essentially cures rats afflicted with diabetes. Desai’s method involves injecting the diabetic mice with extremely small machines that contain insulin-producing cells.

The major obstacle to such an approach is that the bodies of both animals and human beings will launch an immune system attack against the insulin-producing cells. Desai gets around this by including tiny pores in the nanomachine that are only 7 nanometers across — wide enough to allow insulin to leave the nanomachine, but too small for antibodies to invade and attack.

Once in the bloodstream, the nanomachines should last a lifetime, meaning an insulin nanomachine would essentially be a cure for diabetes.

Desai’s next step will be long-term studies of her insulin nanomachines in small animals, followed by tests on larger animals such as chimpanzees.

Source:

Tiny capsules float downstream. Kristen Philipkoski, Wired, October 29, 2001.

Celera Wins Grant to Decode Rat Genome

Following its successes with decoding the genomes of humans, mice and flies, Celera Genomics recently announced it had been awarded a $58 million National Institutes Health grant, along with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, to sequence the DNA of rats. Since rats are widely used in medical experiments already, the rat genome could provide a lot of clues to understanding human and animal diseases.

The rat’s genome is believed to be about the same size as that of human beings. Rats are preferred over mice in medical research because, among other things, they have larger bodies which make it easier to study models of human diseases.

Celera’s Craig Venter told The BBC, “WE believe that by pooling our resources [with the Baylor College of Medicine] we can quickly unlock the mysteries of this important model organism which should aid researchers in their quest for a better understanding of basic human biology and health, and thus to find improved cures and treatments for disease.”

Source:

Rat genome is next. The BBC, March 1, 2001.

Attack on University of Minnesota Worst Lab Attack in Recent Years

On April 5, the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for a raid on a University of Minnesota lab
that released over 100 animals and vandalized the lab doing more than
$2 million in damage.

The lab was conducting experiments
with rats, pigeons, salamanders and mice on a variety of research projects
including efforts to better understand cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
Dr. Walter Low, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, said the
raid set back studies being conducted on Alzheimer’s by at least two years
(the University of Minnesota is well known for developing a strain of
mice that mimic the traits often found in Alzheimer’s patients.)

Along with freeing the lab
animals, the ALF operatives smashed computers, wrecked microscopes and
photocopiers and even destroyed human tissue that were part of a research
program to find a vaccine to attack brain tumors. As Low pointed out,
this is rather ironic since the animal rights activists insist tissue
cultures should be used to replace animals in medical research.

Several people in the Minnesota
area, including a cancer patient, are offering a reward of $10,000 for
information leading to the capture and conviction of the perpetrators.

The reaction from animal rights
groups was predictable. Lisa Lange of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
was quoted in New Scientist as saying, “We do things in a very different
way, but I understand their frustration. The real crime is that millions
of animals are being tortured and killed.”

On the other hand Freeman Wicklund, executive director of the nonprofit Animal Liberation League,
told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that such actions hurt the animal rights
cause. “We hope everybody realizes that the visible minority within
the animal-rights community doesn’t represent the broader movement,” Wicklund said. “A
lot of people who care about animals are upset about the actions.”

Although it is nice to see
Wicklund oppose such raids, he is ignoring reality when he implies
his view is in the majority. In fact he has been widely denounced by animal
rights activists for his stance against terrorist activities.

Sources:

Animal activists suspected in lab damage. Jim Adams, Minnesota Star Tribune, April 6, 1999.

Activists up the ante. Kurt Kleiner, New Scientist, April 17, 1999.

Research labs vandalized, 75 animals taken. Associated Press, April 6, 1999.

NC A.L.F. Liberates 116 from Vivisection Lab. No Compromise, Press Release, Arpil 9, 1999.

Doctor refutes claim animal experiments have brought us closer to cure for Alzheimer’s disease, call such claims “exploitative” of stricken families. New England Anti-Vivisection Society, Press Release, April 9, 1999.

Veternarian charges U of M experimenters exaggerated claims of research progress. In Defense of Animals, Press Release, April 9, 1999.

ALF tactics condemned. Letter to the editor, Minnesota Daily, April 9, 1999.

More lost U lab animals found in Woodbury field. Jim Adams, Minnesota Star Tribune, April 9, 1999.

Minn. research labs vandalized. Associated Press, April 6, 1999.

Animal Liberation Front claims responsibility for liberation of 116 animals from University of Minnesota, while destroying violent research. North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, Press Release, April 5, 1999.

A.L.F. Raids University of Minnesota Animal Lab. North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, Press Release, April 5, 1999.

Vigil for lab animals. Animal Liberation Front, Press Release, April 7, 1999.

New rabies vaccine and anti-addiction drugs show promise in animal tests

Astonishingly, rabies still kills
more than 40,000 people every year around the world, but a new DNA vaccine
being tested in animals may help push that number to 0.

Scientists at the Rocky Mountain
Laboratory in Montana announced that eight monkeys injected with the vaccine
appeared to be completely immune to a wide range of common rabies viruses.
The vaccine causes the lymph node to trigger an immune response which
caused complete immunity to rabies after about 30 days.

The main advantage to the new vaccine,
however, is cost. The DNA vaccine can be produced for a few dollars per
dose, compared to a couple thousand dollars for the traditional vaccine.

In other news, a new drug entering
animal testing provides hope that human addiction to narcotics might be
alleviated. Vigabrantin was originally developed to treat epilepsy, but
animal tests suggest it could be used as a treatment for cocaine addiction.
When administered in rats and primates the drug seemed to prevent or diminish
the “high” the animals got from cocaine. A 90-day clinical trial
to test the drug’s efficacy in human beings is scheduled for this fall.

Sources:

“DNA rabies vaccine succeeds in animals,” Roger Highfield, The Daily
Telegraph, June 1998.

“Epilepsy drug could block cocaine addiction,” Reuters News Service,
August 5, 1998.

Future promises more genetically engineered animals

As animal rights activists point
out ad nauseum, animal models are not completely analogous to human beings.
Substances which cause cancer in rats sometime fail to cause cancer in
human beings and vice versa. But what if researchers genetically engineered mice and rats to suffer from the same illnesses human beings suffer from?
Well now they can, which is creating an enormous debate about the ethics
of such animal research.

Until recently, scientists relied on
finding mutant strains of mice which suffered from diseases or symptoms
similar to those experienced by human beings. Mice commonly used to test
cancer treatments, for example, are specially bred to be highly prone
to developing cancer.

Advances in biotechnology take
that one step further and allow scientists to alter the genes in mice
embryos so they are born with specific defects such as cystic fibrosis
or arthritis. As National Institutes of Health immunologist Ronald Schwartz
recently told the Washington Post, such animal models should be incredibly
powerful.

John Sharp, superintendent of induced
mutant resource at the Jackson Laboratory, put it bluntly. “More and
more research is moving toward the use of these mice. It’s where
the future of research is headed.”

And it is not just mice. Researchers
at laboratories around the world are genetically altering pigs, goats
and sheep to do everything from produce more easily transplantable organs
to providing delivery mechanisms for medicine in their milk.

As genetic engineering of animals
spreads, so does the opposition movements aimed at limiting or banning it. Those
opposed to such genetic engineering complain it is wrong to design animals
to suffer.

“There really is something
primordially horrible about replicating animals that will suffer endlessly,”
|Bernard Rollin|, a Colorado State University physiologist, told the Washington Post. Other attack genetic engineering as challenging our notions of life
as inherently sacred.

The biggest opposition in recent
years came in Switzerland, where 112,000 Swiss citizens signed a petition
to put a ban on research on genetically altered animals on the ballot.

Failing to use these genetically
engineered animals, however, will mean ignoring an excellent source of
medical information. Genetically engineered mice have already yielded
important information about deadly human illnesses such as |Huntington’s| disease. When scientists removed a gene in mice which corresponds to the
defective human gene that causes Huntington’s, researchers noticed
small protein deposits in the brains of the mice; something that had not
been observed in Huntington’s patients. Upon reexamining the brains
of Huntington’s victims, however, researchers indeed found the protein
deposits, which are now suspected as one of the primary causes of the
diseases’ symptoms.

Source:

Rick Weiss, “Creation of flawed animals raises new ethics issues,”
Washington Post, June 7, 1998.

Animal experiments lead to possible breakthrough in treatment of spinal cord injuries

A study published in the June issue
of Nature Neuroscience reveals just how far scientists have
come in understanding, and possibly someday correcting, |spinal cord| injuries.

Martin Schwab, of the Institute
for Brain Research at the University of Zurich in Sweden, and his colleagues
took rats and cut the nerve fibers in the rats’ brain stem. This
operation effectively removed the ability of the rats to exercise fine
motor control of their front limbs, making it impossible for them to climb
ropes or grasp food pellets.

Then the researchers injected the
rats with a specially engineered antibody called IN-1. Those rats receiving
IN-1 grew new nerve fibers that took over for the damaged fibers. Both
rats and human beings produce growth inhibitors which usually prevent
new fibers from growing. The Zurich researchers hope the things they have
learned in neutralizing these inhibitors in rats will help them to find
a way to neutralize them in human beings.

“This study re-emphasizes
the role of the non-injured nervous system in compensating for the loss
of function after damage,” said Michael Beattie, a neuroscience professor
at Ohio State University who specializes in spinal cord injury. “The
work they’ve done suggests that they’re on the right track to
understanding how to produce therapies that can enhance repair and recovery
of function.”

Source:

Jane E. Allen “New hope for repairing spinal injuries” Associated
Press, May 18, 1998.