“We primarily look at the immune system in the lungs. We try to use as few laboratory animals as possible by using alternative models that can mimic certain aspects of lung diseases. However, the interaction with the immune system is quite complex because the immune system is not located in just one place in the body, but actually everywhere. This aspect is still missing in our alternative models. To properly test medication and understand the interaction between lung cells and immune cells, sometimes you need the whole system, and thus a laboratory animal.
In our research, we use laboratory animals in two ways. For some questions, we need the entire animal, for example, if we want to look at the disease as a whole, such as causing asthma in a laboratory animal. We then look at which mechanisms are important in the development of the disease, as this can lead to new medications. Often, we do not need the whole animal for research questions, and we can use organoids, tissue slices, or individual cells to test on. This way, we can test many different conditions at once with one laboratory animal, instead of needing more laboratory animals for each study.
In this way, we try to reduce the number of animals needed for research as much as possible. Additionally, we also use lung tissue from patients in the hospital who allow us to use their tissue for experiments. We also try to make it as comfortable as possible for the laboratory animals, in the context of refinement. Think of extra cage enrichment and housing animals together in a cage (depending on the gender). But, at the end of the day, after testing various things and developing a medication, there is always one last step. And that involves looking at what happens in a whole animal with the disease.”