Is this right?

"Well, what about animal rights? Animals have feelings, too. Animal experimentation should not be allowed." 
These are some of the thoughts that many people may have about this whole idea of experimenting on mice and using them towards the research of neurodegenerative diseases. I know questions will rise and many of you may be concerned more about the animals themselves than the contributions they can make. 
Of course, these questions should be addressed and answered instead of ignored. 

We can all agree that it is truly unethical to experiment on animals and give them a feature for aesthetic reasons. For instance, the glow-in-the-dark cat is simply generated as novelty trade pets; inserting glow-in-the-dark genes in a cat is unnecessary. Treating animals as if they were entertainment is unethical. Many people consider their cats as their most prized pets and have a large place in their hearts. For these reasons, it is wrong to experiment on animals for amusement. 

However, there are certain circumstances where animal experimentation is very beneficial. For example, transgenic mice in the research of neurodegenerative diseases. These animals have contributed so much in research and allowed researchers to learn so much more about these diseases. Without these mice, researchers would not be as close as they are to finding cures. I'm not saying that it's okay to use animals to save human lives, nor am I saying animals should not be used at all for research and studies. There is constant debate about these perspectives. However, in these cases, animal experimentation is beneficial. 

Because there are so many different perspectives about animal experimentation, some may say, who are we to measure the worth of a mouse's life and compare it to a human's. Who are we to say which life is more worth it? Is there a trade off we can actually calculate? Or is that unethical as well? 

In the end, the answer to the question "Is it right?" varies. There will never be one answer that everyone can agree on, just like how there will never be a way to measure an animal's life to a human's. 

One more scholarly source

You're probably wondering, "Another post on sources?! Come on, how many more sources do you need, Laura?" 
I agree, I have a good amount of scholarly sources to use and cite in my paper. But one more won't hurt. After all, more is better than less. More sources just means more to support my paper and make it more of a solid piece. As long as I am not just filling the paper with quotes, paraphrases and citations, and am making a strong clear argument, it should not serve much of a problem. 
So one last scholarly source for this blog. 

"Animal models of human amyloidoses: Are transgenic mice worth the timeand trouble?" by Joel N. Buxbaum may just be the source that will answer some of your questions as to whether or not transgenic animals as great as they are perceived to be. Many of the sources I use mainly focus on the benefits that modeled animals have towards research. Some do address problems and disadvantages they faced, but the main tone of the paper is praising the mice. 
However,  Buxbaum's source focuses on whether or not transgenic animals are actually worth it. Should they be used? Are they really that much better? Is the trade-off so significant? 
In this paper, Buxbaum gives several examples of where transgenic models are used for and what types of considerations might be required for an ideal transgenic model. Buxbaum's tone is not a complete go-for-it nor a skeptical one. Rather, Buxbaum is openminded since he listed some considerations for transgenic animals. He then concluded the paper by saying it is up to the researchers as to whether or not it is worth using transgenic animals. The advantage to using transgenic models is being able to examine certain effects and singling out one protein to study. The results of using transgenic models and using non-transgenic models really varies from certain disorders and specifics of the disorder. The disadvantage to using transgenic mice is the unexplainable results, such as a enormous loss of cells. This may be because of the mice's short life span and the fact that mice are much simpler animals than humans, but that is not known for sure. There are always pros and cons to making a decision, but in the end, it remains to be the researchers' decision as to whether or not it is suitable for use in their specific research problem. 

I feel that this source is a great mediator to my paper since my other sources are quite favorable towards using transgenic animals. It is always great to have a source that is not too one sided. 

Food Inc.

I just recently watched Food Inc., a film documenting the food industry, more specifically, farm animals. Before I watched this film, I was already aware of what really goes on in these industries. I have read many articles, heard many stories, and watched many short films on the secrets of where our food really comes from. Every time I learn more, it convinces me a little more to become a Pescetarian, and maybe I will even go all the way and become vegan someday. Becoming a Pescetarian would not be such a bad idea because of its many health benefits.

Aside from leaning more towards excluding meat from my diet, I also wondered about the science behind the production of these animals. How did these farmers decide which animal they would mass produce? How did they get these animals to be relatively the same size? They have to find some way to produce mass amounts of animals that are big without having to rob a bank. After dedicating a second or two to think about the answer, I assembled the puzzle pieces together and realized that it correlates to my topic of genetically modified animals.

Yes, genetically modified animals not only contribute to researching medicine and diseases, but they also play a role in the food industry. This just gives you and idea of how broad the topic of transgenic animals is. Ranging from medicine to food, these animals play a large role in our lives. And although my research is on the role of genetically modified animals in medicine, I wanted to give you all an idea of another approach that could have been taken while still researching about transgenic animals. They aren't all meant to be lab animals.

Transgenic Animals

I want to dedicate this post to talk more about genetically modified animals and share some interesting facts that I found while researching.

Now, you would think most of these animals to be super animals that have some outrageous power that makes them a mix between two or maybe even several animals. You actually aren't that far off from reality! Believe it or not, with today's technology, there are some weird and crazy looking animals out there.

Take a look at these animals. Can you guess which ones are real and which ones are fake? 

Glow-in-the Dark Cats? 

Web-Spinning Goats?

Dog + Lion = Dolion

Cat + Lemur = Lemurat

Umbuku Lizard

Of course not all of these animals are real. But you'd be surprised to finds out which ones actually do exist. Only two of these five bizarre animals are real; the cats and goats. 

Yes, there are actual cats that glow in the dark. They glow-in-the-dark because a glow-in-the-dark gene is inserted into their genomes with flourescence. And the web-spinning goat? The goat does not actually spin webs like spiders do. Their genetically modified milk is what can be used to produce web-like material. 

As you can see, animals are genetically modified to possess odd characteristics and abilities. Some are unpredictable and you wouldn't even think they are real. 

Beginning the Research

Now that I have a topic and narrowed it down to a question, the researching begins.
Genetically modified or transgenic animals and their role in medicine is not something I know much about. I chose the topic knowing the mere facts that genes of animals are changed for the obvious reasons of aesthetics and survival for the animals and humans too. If someone were to ask me what about medicine and transgenic animals, I would not know what to say after the fact that transgenic animals are used towards the field of medicine. This is where my problem begins, but will end as I begin my research.

After a class learning about the different researching tools provided by UB's library, I found many sources, both scholarly and non-scholarly, but reliable. From just reading the titles and summaries of most of these sources, my knowledge about transgenic animals and their impact on medicine has increased that much more. I was fascinated to find that many sources I came across were about transgenic animals and Alzheimer's.

Calcium dysregulation in Alzheimer's disease: Recent advances gained from genetically modified animals is a journal article from "Cell Calcium" about the success of Alzheimer's research because of genetically modified animals. These animals, more specifically, the triple transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease displayed a synaptic dysfunction and behavioral defects of a great abundance of amyloid-beta peptides. These amyloid-beta peptides are the primary reason why cells cannot maintain at an intracellular calcium homeostasis, which causes a loss in cell count. Although it has not yet been discovered why this synaptic dysfunction occurs, the transgenic mouse have already made a great contribution towards cure for Alzheimer's disease, and we all know that Alzheimer's can be a very dangerous disease.

Asking a Question

We ask questions all the time. Every waking minute of our days, we have questions swarming our curious minds and sometimes, we have trouble keeping them in our minds. But what we usually don't have trouble with is coming up with a question to ask.

Although I have finally pinpointed on a topic I want to research, genetic modification of animals, it was a bit of endeavor to ask a question that I want my research to answer. There are many directions I can take my research towards. My options range from the ethics of genetic modification, the benefits and hinderance on animals for food or medicine use, to just about genetic modification in general and how it affects our daily lives. All of these ideas interest me and initially, I was leaning towards researching the benefits of genetically modified animals on animals versus humans. But in the end, I decided that since I am in the pre-pharmacy major, I want to use this research opportunity to my advantage and focus on the use of genetic modification of animals for medicine.

How is genetically modifying animals helpful towards the medical field?

I realize that this question can be a tad bit difficult when researching for sources, but I will be focusing on the broad aspect of how genetically modified animals contribute towards medicine. These contributions can be whether it's researching medicine, creating new medicine or testing medicine. Hopefully, I will be able to find abundant sources that will uphold my research. 

Embarking on Research

As part of my freshman college English 201 course at the University at Buffalo, I am required to conduct research on the role of animals in science, technology, and culture. Although it is a requirement and sounds painful, I will use this blog to my advantage to just jot down and share some thoughts.

And so here it is, a blog where you will be able to follow me on my path of research. Like a journal, my blog will be a place where my thoughts will be shared. There will be occasions where I will free write about sources and ideas and there will be other times where I will share my experience about where my research is headed.

Now, as far as this research process goes, all I have so far is animal breeding. I have not yet decided what exactly about animal breeding, but I am leaning towards the ideas of selective breeding or genetic modification of animals. Typically, I am not a very opinionated person with strong feelings about controversial ideas because there are always some great arguments for both sides of the argument. However, both selective breeding, the act of cross mating animals for specific traits, and genetic modification, the act of transferring genes from one organism to another, are topics of interest I want to research more not only to learn and write about, but also to inform others about.

Soon enough, I will be posting sources and material that I will discuss and apply towards my research.