Each year millions of animals are used in Canada for medical research and toxicity testing, but a growing body of scientific evidence points to the difficulties of treating humans like 70-kg mice.
After years of using rodents to conduct heart disease research, Charu Chandrasekera began to question the value of using animals as stand-ins for humans. She lost her fervour for animal research after her father suffered a heart attack, bringing home to her the realization that human relevance must be at the forefront of biomedical discoveries.
Each year millions of animals are used in Canada for medical research and toxicity testing, but a growing body of scientific evidence points to the difficulties of treating humans like 70-kg mice.
After years of using rodents to conduct heart disease research, Charu Chandrasekera began to question the value of using animals as stand-ins for humans. She lost her fervour for animal research after her father suffered a heart attack, bringing home to her the realization that human relevance must be at the forefront of biomedical discoveries.
Dr. Chandrasekera’s quest to find more effective, human-centered research methods led her to develop the Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods (CCAAM) at the University of Windsor, the first of its kind in the country.
“Despite decades of extensive research conducted at enormous expense, the rate of congruence between animal models and the human condition is at an all-time low,” says Chandrasekera, CCAAM’s inaugural executive director. “We do not fully understand human disease mechanisms and 95 per cent of drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials.”
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Photo via University of Windsor.
