write (about a paragraph) where you explain to a very concerned member of the public what the role/function/importance of the use of animals is developmental biology research is.
The use of animals in biological research is unfortunately often the best option for learning about the multitude of questions that scientists ask about life everyday. Technology is not at the point that scientists can model what is happening inside an organism without actually going in and looking at the function of each piece in the whole. Maybe someday we will know enough about the genome to be able to only use computers to do manipulations and ask questions about the affect of different substances inside an animal body. While not all research with animals has a direct relation to bettering human life or the environment, a lot of it is. Animal models allow scientists to learn about the cause and ways to treat many types of diseases and genetic abnormalities as one example. The use of animals in research is heavily monitored in a lot of countries and researches must be trained in the proper handling and care of animal subjects before they can start experiments. Some types of animals are protected a little bit more than others, for instance mice and other mammals are highly regulated but experiments on fish or invertebrates are a little less regulated. I guess this is due to the increased connection that people feel to animals that are more like us. Pharmaceuticals are often tested on animals first to prevent potential harm to humans. One way to decrease the use of animals in this capacity would be to use body, or somatic, cells that have been returned to a stem cell state (induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells) to grow sheets of cells that act like human organs. This method can look at how drugs change after being detoxified in liver cells and how they affect heart cells as a few examples. If these types of cells can be used instead of animals subjects then the use of animals in drug testing could decline.