Interview: Professor Sir Patrick Bateson
Sir Patrick Bateson FRS is Professor of Ethology at the University of Cambridge. He was Biological Secretary of the Royal Society and Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and is President of the Zoological Society of London. His main research interests are the development and evolution of behaviour, but he has written extensively on animals in research and was author of the report that led the National Trust to ban the hunting of deer with dogs on its land.
1. From your perspective as a highly respected researcher and as former Biological Secretary of the Royal Society, what do you think are the strengths of non-animal research methods?
I believe that computer simulation has an important role to play in research and, by sharpening up research questions, can greatly reduce the number of animals used. I do not think that such modelling can fully replace animal experiments because reality checks are always needed and the parameter settings used in models have to be guided by the performance of actual biological systems. Furthermore biology continues to surprise us. Besides simulations, I see great promise in the development of automated systems used in testing the biological activity of new products.
2. What do you see as the ethical issues underlying the importance of non-animal approaches to medical questions?
Those who attack animal experiments attempt to occupy the moral high ground. I do not think that the ethical case for doing experiments on animals, namely reducing suffering in humans and animals through a thorough understanding of biological processes, should go by default. That said, it is plainly unethical to use animals in research without considering and, where appropriate, trying the alternatives.
3. What might be the most useful research areas for non-animal approaches to be developed?
Given that many of the animals used by laboratories are for testing the safety and efficacy of new products, I think that most effort should be focused on developing automated techniques for assessing biological activity and toxicity. For instance endocrine disrupting chemicals could be detected with biosensors (analytical devices incorporating biological material with a transducer system to read the resulting signal) and the process could be extremely rapid.
4. The new government-backed National Centre for Replacement, Reduction and Refinement has an important role to play. What problems could limit the success of the Centre?
The main problem is the sheer heterogeneity of possible solutions to the over-use of animals. The chemical engineer who is developing a biosensor is unlikely to have much to say to someone who is developing a full scale simulation of the mammalian heart. My own preference is for a virtual centre rather than one that is constructed out of bricks and mortar and is populated by a permanent staff. The value of meeting people, in terms of stimulating collaboration and starting up new areas of research, can be obtained by periodic meetings in established conference centres.
5. The government has said that non-animal research methods are “advanced” methods with potential to improve medical progress. What do you think?
Developing biosensors involves cutting-edge technology. Some of the systems approaches (i.e. studying organisms as integrated and interacting networks of genes, proteins and biochemical processes. See www.systemsbiology.org) to biological problems are also undoubtedly advanced. Experimentalists who are accustomed to varying systematically at most a handful of factors while randomising the others or holding them constant find such approaches difficult. Training a new generation of scientists to use systems approaches will take time.
6. The Dr Hadwen Trust has been at the forefront of developing replacement methods for over 35 years. What should it be doing to meet today’s challenges?
My sense is that too much energy has been devoted to attempts to discredit front-line research on biological problems that uses animals. This has driven many people, who could be powerful friends, onto the defensive. The effort should be on demonstrating the excitement of, for example, solving problems of screening for biological activity. Finding answers will bring great academic kudos and that is important given the perception that looking for alternatives can damage careers. It is also likely to be highly lucrative – which should be important when seeking private investment for new projects.
7. How could the learned societies facilitate the more rapid replacement of animal experiments?
As things stand, the Royal Society has put on its web site a statement about the use of animals in research. Apart from reminding researchers of their responsibilities, they are told that they must, when appropriate, attempt to replace animals. Many learned societies, publishing important international journals as they do, can raise standards world wide by insisting that, internationally, all researchers submitting papers comply with the strict guidelines and legal requirements, such as those operating in the UK.
Further reading
Fentem J, Chamberlain M & Sangster B (2004). The feasibility of replacing animal testing for assessing consumer safety: a suggested future direction. ATLA 32:617-623.
Thielecke H, Mack A & Robitzki A (2001). Biohybrid microarrays – impedimetric biosensors with 3D in vitro tissues for toxicological and biomedical screening. Fresenius J Anal Chem 369:23-29.
Borodina I & Nielson J (2005). From genomes to in silico cells via metabolic networks. Curr Opin Biotechnol 16:350-355.