Question: do you feel bad about people experimenting on nimals? if so, why? (i do not want to offend you,)

Serena Corr answered on 19 Jun 2013:

Hi 0dtaboadaleon

This is a very important question, so I am not offended at all! I do not have very much experience with these kinds of experiments (only in cancer research), but I will try to answer your question.

Some of the research I do is to make nanoparticles that can be used to image cancer in the body. If you’ve heard of an MRI – this is where you can image the body in great detail and allows for doctors to locate tumors. Sometimes, a contrast agent is used – this allows for greater resolution in the images taken. This is very important for diagnosing diseases quickly – then treatment can start sooner. We make contrast agents out of nanoparticles of iron oxide. These particles are magnetic and because of their magnetic properties, they interact with the water in your body which sharpens the images taken. Before you can ever use these contrast agents in humans or in animals, you have to spend a long time testing their potential toxicity. That means doing a lot of experiments on cells in the lab. You can incubate many different types of cells with the nanoparticles and leave them there for many days- checking each day with a microscope if they are causing any harm to the cells. After a lot of testing, it may be possible to test how good the contrast agent behaves in a live animal. You might want to check whether it does work and sharpen images, or whether is goes to a specific part of the body. These kinds of tests are really important, as the more we can learn about these agents, the better we can design them to do their job as best as possible.

I hope this answers your question.