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Professionalism and ethics in animal research

Nature Biotechnology volume 33, pages 1027–1028 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

In recent years, there has been growing sentiment outside of the research community that too many animals suffer 'needlessly' in experiments. Furthermore, an increasing number of researchers speak of the moral 'costs' of such work and raise doubts about its value, at least for answering certain questions1,2,3. Researchers working with animals have increasingly been called upon to engage the moral dimensions of their work and to communicate the importance of animal research for continued scientific progress in areas that matter to members of the general public, such as advances in medicines and vaccines (e.g., http://www.basel-declaration.org/). Even so, there are barriers to broadening the scope of ethical engagement within animal research practices, which are important to acknowledge. Here, we briefly discuss those barriers and provide some potential practical solutions to address them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich, Switzerland

    Nikola Biller-Andorno

  2. Messerli Research Institute,

    Herwig Grimm

  3. Veterinary University Vienna, Austria

    Herwig Grimm & Rebecca L Walker

  4. Medical University Vienna, Austria

    Herwig Grimm

  5. University Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Herwig Grimm

  6. Department of Social Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Rebecca L Walker

Authors
  1. Nikola Biller-Andorno
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  2. Herwig Grimm
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  3. Rebecca L Walker
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rebecca L Walker.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Biller-Andorno, N., Grimm, H. & Walker, R. Professionalism and ethics in animal research. Nat Biotechnol 33, 1027–1028 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3363

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