Animal research has often been a controversial issue with animal activists and scientists, placing them on opposite ends of the spectrum at times. The ethics alone have placed a burden on the biomedical community with outrage at the procedures animals have undergone. Animals are killed, injected with fatal diseases, gone without food to test physiological responses and much more at the detriment of the animal’s physical and emotional state. Specific animals are used for research more than others, and these animals are rats (Rattus), mice (Mus), and birds. With that in mind, mice remain invaluable in a biomedical setting for their similarity to the human genome, their cost-effective nature, and their necessity through genetic engineering.
Mice are often used as an ideal non-human model for research that are applied or related to humans. There are 3.1 billion base pairs in the mouse and human genome and only about 5% are protein-coding or genes. These genes are on average 85% identical with
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In 2002, The Animal Welfare Act by the USDA was amended and excluded these animals from the Act’s definition of ‘Animal’, thereby excluding them from protection. When mice and rats consist of more than 90% of all animal research this is understandably concerning because the amendment has yet to be updated as of 2017 (Vandamme, T.F.). However, the manual developed by the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) and the protocol developed by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) work in tandem to ensure that not only the application for grants regarding the research is ethically sound for the treatment of the animals, but that the actual facilities in use live up to specific standards as well. They may not be protected by the act, but the IACUC routinely checks these facilities to make sure they meet all the requirements before, during, and after