In the news
6 Sep 2008
1 December 2006
World AIDS Day warning – animal research costs human lives
On World AIDS Day (December 1st), a leading non-animal testing charity warns that researchers must stop conducting animal experiments if more medical progress to save humans is to be made.
Worldwide, more than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981. Around 36.3 million adults and 2.3 million children were living with HIV at the end of 20051. The Dr Hadwen Trust, a non-animal medical research charity funding ground-breaking AIDS-related research at University College London, warns that unless we move away from misdirected animal experiments, we will be squandering our opportunity to save millions of human lives.
Dr Gill Langley, Science Director for the Dr Hadwen Trust, says:
“Although drugs can reduce illness and deaths from AIDS, it remains a major global killer and there is still no cure or vaccine despite more than two decades of animal experimentation. Throwing more money at more animal experiments is wasting lives, both animal and human. We already know how misleading animal models can be in HIV / AIDS research, and with an epidemic of such gross proportions, it is scandalous that we persist in studying the wrong virus in the wrong species.”
The charity is funding research at UCL to devise the first-ever test-tube method for culturing a fungal pneumonia-causing pathogen that is particularly common in immunocompromised AIDS patients and the commonest AIDS-defining opportunistic infection in North America and Europe. The project is using donated samples of human lung cells from infected patients and could revolutionise research in this field2.
Dr Jim Huggett, Senior Research Fellow at UCL, says:
“Pneumocystis jirovecii represents a serious pathogen that is an increasing problem in the West and a significant cause of mortality in the developing world. Establishing a simple culture strategy would have a major impact on our understanding of this organism and effectively remove the need for the use of animals in its research.”
Over the years, chimpanzees, old-world primates, cats and mice have been used in experiments despite the fact that HIV infection does not cause AIDS in any other animal than humans. In fact researchers are not even able to study the right virus – HIV – in animals and there are significant differences in how the virus behaves and how infection manifests itself in different animal species3.
By contrast, some of the most successful drugs like protease inhibitors4, have been developed using non-animal research techniques and now the UK’s leading non-animal medical research charity – the Dr Hadwen Trust – warns that it is vital researchers abandon animal experiments if we are to stem the tide of global HIV infection and death.
The Dr Hadwen Trust argues that international efforts and funds must be focused instead on non-animal research using human cells and tissues, alongside ethical volunteer studies, so that future work concentrates on researching the right virus in the right species – humans.
Says Dr Langley:
“Non-animal techniques have made an exceptionally important contribution to HIV/AIDS research, in fact virtually every major research milestone has resulted from non-animal studies such as molecular techniques measuring HIV in the bloodstream; genetic techniques to show how the HIV virus mutates rapidly in humans; test-tube techniques to demonstrate how HIV infects human cells; human cell and tissue cultures to test new drugs; computational programmes like QSARs to design new drugs and mathematical models to better understand the infection process.”
The Dr Hadwen Trust’s funded research work is at University College London’s Centre for Infectious Diseases & International Health. The three-year project aims to culture a human-infecting fungus, Pneumocystis jirovecii, in the laboratory, replacing experiments on infected rodents with purposely damaged immune systems.
ENDS
Notes:
1 UNAIDS/WHO Global Report (May 2006)
2 Dr Jim Huggett is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Infectious Diseases & International Health, University College London.
3 Monkey models study a simian immunodeficiency virus – SIV; cat models are infected by the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV); genetically modified mice are also used.
4 One of the first protease inhibitor drugs, indinavir (Crixivan), proceeded to clinical trials on the basis of its anti-HIV activity in test-tube studies using proteins and human cells (not animal models of AIDS).
The Dr Hadwen Trust is the UK’s leading medical research charity funding exclusively non-animal research techniques to replace animal experiments, benefiting people and animals. Registered charity 261096.
