Oxford University researchers demand: We should test heart medicines on “virtual humans” in the computer instead of tormenting animals for it. How far is research here now?
Computer simulations are a faster, cheaper and more effective alternative to animal testing and will soon play an important role in the early stages of drug development, “Elisa Passini, Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford, said in a detailed article on the latest findings in the field.
Millions of animals have to suffer – but computers deliver the better results.
To develop new medicines that can save lives, we find ourselves in a moral conflict: how to determine the risk of a new substance for humans?
So science relies on animal experiments, with all its consequences. This could one day end, because fortunately, computer systems and software are developing so rapidly that they provide increasingly better results in virtual experiments – even better than the questionable animal experiments.
Studies on new drugs and their potential effects on the human heart are 75 to 85 percent accurate in animal studies – that’s good, but far from optimal.
The latest research by the University of Oxford with computer simulations of the “virtual man”, however, come to 89 to 96 percent accuracy.
Conclusion: better results, better medication, no suffering animals.
Computer instead of animal experiments: where is the “catch”?Although computers are becoming more and more powerful, research on drugs is also pushing modern systems to their limits. While the simulation of a single (heart) cell requires a few minutes, in a 3D model of the entire heart it would be considerably more complicated. “The simulation of a heartbeat can take about three hours in a supercomputer with nearly 1,000 processors,” says Passini.
There will be limitations and hurdles in the future: The human body is complex and has evolved over millions of years – so hoping for a quick miracle in the form of the complete abolition of animal testing should not be expected. “The complicated interaction within the human organism can not be broken down so easily on a computer simulation or a chip,” said Gilbert Schönfelder of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) recently compared to the “world”.
So we are still at the very beginning of a development, which, after all, has already been proven in small areas.
Sources: The Conversation, Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), Welt.
This is an issue that is very close to us. Please give an extra big chunk of support to Marisol in getting masses of signatures on this petition to help stray animals in Morocco. Thanks – SAV.
This is the wording of the petition to His Royal Highness, King Mohammed VI:
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Your Royal Highness,
I witnessed a large population of stray dogs and cats living under extremely harsh conditions. Attached is one photo taken during February 2018 near Ouarzazate in the Atlas Mountains region showing a stray dog’s life conditions.
These sentient animals are always starving and often harmed , and are continually exposed to extreme weather conditions, without having access to shelter.
I wanted to seek your Majesty King Mohammed VI’s involvement in the following resolutions:
1.Support the prompt deployment of the Trap-Neuter-Release Pilot Program in Rabat, and oversee the expansion of the program throughout the country in the near future. This program aims to reduce the population of stray dogs and cats by inhibiting continual reproduction of these animals. Furthermore, this program promotes the health of these animals and the general population through the implementation of general check-ups and vaccinations of the former.
2.Endorse a National Domestic Animal Sterilization Program through which veterinarians promote the sterilization of pets to prevent unwanted reproduction of the animals and an increase in the stray dogs and cats population. Subsidies to cover the cost of this procedure would enable low-income pet owners to sterilize their pets and contribute to the solution of this problem.
3. Endorse education programs for both adults and children that promote treating dogs, cats and sentient beings with the respect, love, and dignity any living creature deserves, emphasizing the importance of keeping these animals inside homes as pets.
4. Condemn dog shootings, and impose legislation to prohibit this activity.
5. Endorse the installation of eating dispensers throughout the cities with food for dogs and cats. Two different options:
· A machine that is currently working in some countries such as Turkey where once someone deposits their bottle at the top, food is released at the bottom. “The Pugedon Smart Recycling Boxes” operate at no charge to the city, and the recycled bottles cover the cost of the food. Above is a link to a video where you can see the machine.
Once you shoot a selfie with a predator – Thailand holidaymakers can fulfill this wish in zoos. How much the wild animals are suffering, has revealed our reporter in Tiger Park Pattaya.
See in the video how dangerous the contact with the big cats can be.
After ten days, the tiger babies are taken away from the mother.
The tigers in the Tiger Park Pattaya roam freely, apparently lamb-like.
Every visitor can touch the cats, pet them, take a picture with them.
But how do the animals get so tame?
Animal park operator Rustem Isliamov explains it to reporter this way: “From the tenth day of life on, we train them to deal with the many visitors daily, and that they do not incur or bite them.”
He does not tell the reporter how he trains the tigers.
The Tiger wildlife expert Valeria Goller of the animal welfare organization PETA recounts: “The young tigers are regularly beaten to break their will, and only if they have no will, they can later guarantee a safe handling of the audience. The older ones get medication to keep them calm and docile. And all this works only until the tigers become five years old.
Afterwards they are sorted out and kept in cages for the rest of their live or are or are killed for the “traditional” Chinese medicine”.
The fact that a cat follows their instincts is shown by an incident four years ago in the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The 19-year-old Isabelle Brennan was attacked by a tiger and seriously injured.
Since the tigers were not kept appropriately and illegally, the authorities closed the tiger temple.
The attitude of the animals in the Tiger Park Pattaya is not species-appropriate, says the wildlife expert.
She wants to turn on the authorities now.
Translation: Venus
Comment: While I was translating the report, I had an idea: the zoo keepers could interrupt the medication for the tigers!
Just as a test, to see if the number of visitors automatically reduces, and if the park closes tomorrow.
It is a wonderful late summer day. I am swimming and enjoying the cool water, the warm air, the bright sun. I look in the mountains. The green forests. The blue sky. A wonderfully beautiful world.
But only for us humans!
We have made the whole earth for us, for us “developed”, reserved for us. Towns and villages, mountains and lakes, deserts and seas, forests and meadows – we have left nothing out.
Everything is ours, nothing belongs to the animals.
This total submission of the world, this global attack, was an act of unsurpassable and irreproducible barbarism.
More than anything the human being cannot take, and everything can be taken only once.
And with what right have we taken away the whole world from animals? With no one at all!
We just grabbed everything because we could grab everything. Naked terror. Unrestrained greed. Boundless egoism. We have declared the whole earth to our property and all animals to our slaves.
If we give late some rights to some animals, with halfhearted and ridiculous scope, this is no reason to pat ourselves on the back.
We do not give anything to the animals, we just give them back a tiny part of what we took away from them before.
We act like someone, who has robbed a huge food market and then generously gives the owner a bar of chocolate from the loot.
Yours sincerely,
Cordelia Britton
Head of Programmes
FOUR PAWS UK
P.S. We’ll be sure to send a reminder closer to the date, but you can watch the debate live on 4 June 2018. Thanks again for making this debate possible!
