Research by disease

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the commonest form of dementia and is one of society’s most costly health problems, affecting about half a million people in the UK today.

Asthma

Asthma is the most common serious childhood illness and still causes about 2,000 deaths a year in the UK.

Blood clots

Blood clotting (coagulation) disturbs blood flow, and is essential to us, for example to ensure we stop bleeding after a cut.

Blood transfusion

Blood transfusion has saved the lives of countless people and animals.

Cancer

Cancer occurs when cells in the body grow and reproduce uncontrollably, destroying healthy tissue and organs in the process. There are more than 200 different types of cancer.

Covid-19

Animals have been used extensively to research Covid-19 and their use has been crucial to the development of Covid-19 vaccines, preventatives, and treatments.

Diabetes (insulin)

The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of insulin in 1920-21 at the University of Toronto is one of the most spectacular examples of the contribution of animal research to medical progress.

Endometriosis

Heart disease

The zebrafish - which can mend its own heart muscle - is providing clues to heart failure, which affects 750,000 people in the UK.

High blood pressure

Research into Brazilian pit viper venom produced the first in a new class of medicines to lower blood pressure - angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)

History of the heart-lung machine

The cardiopulmonary bypass pump, or ‘heart-lung machine’ as it is commonly known, can take on the role of the heart and lungs during cardiac surgery. Operating on a beating heart is extremely difficult, and the heart-lung machine allows blood to bypass the heart while surgeons work.

HIV & AIDS

First reported in 1981, AIDS was quickly shown to be a mysterious epidemic which spread with no known cause.

Liver disease

The term liver disease includes more than 100 different diseases affecting the liver, many of which have been research using animals.

Meningitis

Vaccines for several types of meningitis have been developed in mice and have resulted in a huge fall in the disease.

Migraine

Migraine is a disorder usually involving headaches, which can be debilitating, and affects around six million people in the UK.

Monkeypox

Monkeypox is caused by a poxvirus which was first discovered in monkeys. The main method of preventing infection with monkeypox is administering the smallpox vaccine, the first vaccine to be created by humanity.

Muscular dystrophy

Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a rare genetic condition in which, slowly and progressively, the muscles waste.

Organ rejection

Animal studies early in the 20th century - for instance learning how to sew together (suture) blood vessels - led to the first reported cases of animal heart transplants in the 1930s and 1940s.

Organ transplants

Organ transplants have improved the quality - and length - of life for millions of people across the world.

Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's Disease is a progressive disorder that causes problems with movement, including tremor, muscle rigidity and slowness.

Penicillin

Florey and Chain first tested the effects of penicillin in mice in 1940. By 1941, penicillin was being used to treat dying soldiers. This research won the Nobel Prize in 1945.

Polio

This advance alone has saved millions of lives, and the World Health Organisation is close to eradicating polio completely through its worldwide vaccination programme.

Pompe disease

Pompe disease (glycogen storage disease type 2, acid maltase deficiency) is a rare genetic disorder which causes progressive muscle weakness.

Premature babies

In 1870, infant death rates reached their peak, with almost one in four babies dying at birth.

Tuberculosis

A hundred years ago, tuberculosis (TB) was one of the most common causes of death, and isolation hospitals were common.