Young Scientists Answer Key Questions about Animal Research

Research involving animals often sparks controversy in the media and among the public. Concerns and criticism tend to dominate the discussion, with some voices calling for a complete ban. A new five-part video series offers the perspective of several researchers, inviting those who work with or study laboratory animals to share their views.

Over the past few years, Tosca Dalessi and Simona Doneva have done more than complete their PhDs. They have also contributed to the public debate on research involving animals. Their project, Forschung mit Tieren in der Schweiz (“Animal Research in Switzerland”), gives a platform to several voices from the Swiss research community, most of them early-career researchers. In this interview, Dalessi and Doneva explain how the project came about and what they hope it will achieve.

How did you come up with the idea for a video series on animal research?

Tosca Dalessi: Some time ago, I heard that a new popular initiative against animal experiments would be put to a vote. At the same time, I felt that researchers’ perspectives were not being heard enough. Their voices are less visible in the discussion. So I asked Simona whether she would like to work with me to develop an idea.

And then?

Tosca Dalessi: Video seemed like a very accessible format. It was also important to us to include questions from the public. So we developed a survey that allowed us to collect questions from almost 400 participants. We then grouped the most frequently asked questions into five topic areas.

Simona Doneva: It helped that there were two of us working on the project and that we complemented each other well. Tosca brought her specialist knowledge and a good sense of the issues involved, while I was able to use my programming skills to analyze the survey. The project became much bigger than I had initially expected. And also much more professional, which is of course great.

What do you think about the result?

Simona Doneva: It feels great! My PhD thesis may only be read by four people, but these videos will reach many more. Tosca and I were able to create something that makes an impact. We could not have done it without the support of others or without the video production expertise available at UZH.

In addition to the two of you, the videos feature other researchers from several institutions. How did you decide who to involve?

Tosca Dalessi: Once we had identified the key topics, we thought about which people in our networks might be able to answer these questions. Paulin Jirkof, UZH’s 3R coordinator, also supported us through her extensive network. That is how we found the 12 researchers from four institutions: the universities of Zurich, Basel and Fribourg, as well as University Hospital Zurich.

Simona Doneva: We had already worked with many of them before, for example on projects such as Pint of Science or in science communication courses. We knew other researchers from continuing education courses in laboratory animal science and from the National Research Program NRP 79, Advancing 3R – Animals, Research and Society.

Did you ever have any concerns about speaking publicly on such a controversial topic?

Tosca Dalessi: I often talk about this topic with people who aren’t in research. So far, my experiences have been positive; the conversations have always been respectful. That encouraged me to broaden the discussion.

Simona Doneva: When we started the project, I wasn’t fully aware of the complexity of the topic, as I have never conducted experiments involving animals myself. It was only over time that I realized how polarized and complex the issue is. I had always thought that science could be neutral. But with a topic that is so morally charged, that doesn’t work.

What do you want to achieve with your project?

Simona Doneva: Our aim is to show how the people who work with animals in research every day think about the issue. Their voices are not heard enough in the public debate. After all, it is often early-career researchers who work with animals in the lab, while professors may not have carried out experiments themselves for years. Transparency should come first and foremost from the researchers directly involved in experiments on animals.

Tosca Dalessi: Exactly, because animal welfare is a key element of research. The way lab animals are handled has changed a great deal in recent years. For example, gentle handling is now standard practice. For young researchers, this is simply part of their training.

What would you like to see happen in the current debate in the media, among the public and in politics?

Tosca Dalessi: We hope our videos will inspire young researchers to speak more openly about experiments involving animals and to engage in the debate. We hope they will see this as part of their responsibility and that their voices will also be heard beyond the academic bubble.

Simona Doneva: It would be great if the discussion were less shaped by black-and-white thinking: either you conduct research involving animals, which is bad, or you don’t. In reality, there are many shades of gray: areas in which experiments involving animals are still needed, others in which such experiments and alternative methods are used in complementary ways, and still others in which animal-free methods are already the standard. Wherever research can already be conducted without involving animals, that is what we do.

There are initiatives aimed at phasing out animal experiments. How realistic is that?

Tosca Dalessi: In my field, it can take 15 years for findings obtained using established methods to be applied in medicine. So I don’t think we will stop needing animal research any time soon; we’re talking decades rather than years. At the same time, I think it’s a good goal. If one day we no longer need experiments that involve animals, I’m all for it.

Simona Doneva: A phase-out also depends very much on the field. In some areas, alternative methods to experiments involving animals, such as cell cultures and organoids, are easier to establish, for example, in the cosmetics industry, or in skin and gut research. In neuroscience, a phase-out is likely to take longer. The brain is enormously complex.

Tosca Dalessi completed her PhD at UZH’s Department of Molecular Life Sciences. In her thesis, she studied colorectal cancer cells and showed that they display several characteristics of embryonic cells, making them more aggressive, more resistant to treatment and more prone to metastasis.

She was also involved in a refinement project funded by the Swiss 3R Competence Centre (3RCC). In this project, she tested a new method for genetically modifying laboratory mice that causes fewer side effects and allows the animals to be handled more gently. For example, substances can be administered orally rather than by injection, which makes the process less stressful for the animals. For Dalessi, this underlines the importance of questioning established methods in the interests of animal welfare.

Tosca Dalessi is staying in basic research and will start a postdoc this year at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, where she will study cellular plasticity in cancer as well as in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.
 

Simona Doneva’s PhD thesis was part of the NRP 79 Advancing 3R – Animals, Research and Society at the UZH Center for Reproducible Science. She investigated why findings from experiments involving animals cannot always be successfully transferred to studies in humans.

In her project, Doneva used AI tools to analyze more than 500,000 neuroscience studies and developed a system that systematically brings together evidence from animal studies and clinical studies. This makes it possible to trace how research approaches and new active substances develop from animal models to studies in humans, and which study designs in preclinical research are particularly effective in supporting the transition to the clinic. The findings are now available to researchers via an interactive dashboard.

Simona Doneva will continue to be involved in the NRP 79 project. The group is currently applying for an implementation grant to evaluate and further develop the tool together with additional specialists and bring it into wider use. A postdoc position is also open, in which she would work on AI-supported evidence synthesis.