Animal use in biomedical research is a huge ethical dilemma. The research community agrees animal testing should only be performed when necessary and their use should be kept minimal. Here, we will do a deep dive into the current state of animal use in Australian research and HIV research, featuring voices from clinicians, researchers and community.
“I would hope that animals are only used when absolutely necessary and that their wellbeing is prioritised” – community member living with HIV.
How are animals used in biomedical research?
Animals provide important information on safety and effectiveness of new drugs before they are tested in people. Animal models are usually used to test for toxicities and understand how a new drug is works in the body. They can also help researchers understand how immune responses fight off infections and cancers. Commonly used species in research include mice, rats, sheep, zebrafish and monkeys. These animals are bred and housed for the purpose of research in specialised facilities with trained staff to look after their welfare. At the end of an experiment, animals are humanely euthanised to collect the data needed.
The research community actively works within and respects the ethical framework of “3Rs”.
Replacement: encourages the use of non-animal alternatives
Reduction: focuses on using the smallest number of animals necessary
Refinement: aims to minimise pain, stress, and suffering
“I think that the use of animals in research is best described as a ‘necessary evil’. It is very important to me that animals are only used for essential research and that when they are utilised their burden is minimised” – Animal technician.
“While as a researcher I understand the need for animal models, I wish there were alternatives, including organoids and models of physiology that don’t involve sentient beings” – clinician researcher.
The range of animal models allow researchers to ask specific questions. For example, zebrafish are commonly used for early-stage human developmental studies, ferrets for respiratory infections and monkeys for studying infections that don’t affect other species such as HIV. Mice and monkeys are often used in “preclinical studies”, to test a new drug or compound before a “first in human” clinical trial. Studies using animal models allow drugs to be tested in a controlled environment and therefore provide invaluable insights that are otherwise very difficult to gain.
Australia’s Standards for Animal Research
In Australia, the use of animals in scientific and medical research remains legal under extremely strict regulatory oversight. Victorian institutions must comply with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986, licence conditions, and adhere to the Australian Code for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes.
To ensure these standards are upheld, organisations are required to establish Animal Ethics Committees (AECs), which oversee all aspects of animal care and research practices. Animal welfare and community representatives are part of this committee to ensure that decisions reflect societal expectations surrounding animal welfare and ethical responsibility.
To work with animals, researchers must submit detailed applications to the AEC for review. Committees assess whether the proposed work is scientifically justified and ethically acceptable. Committees monitor ongoing animal welfare, inspect research facilities and procedures. Researchers must prioritise animal welfare and adhere strictly to the ethics.
Are there alternative options?
In January 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced their continuing commitment to phase out mammalian animal testing by 2035. The decision reflects the growing effort to reduce the use of animals in scientific research. Researchers have been developing alternative methods such as computer modelling and laboratory grown mini organs. Microphysiological systems (including organoids and organ-on-a-chip) are three-dimensional, organ-like structures grown from human stem cells. They contain multiple cell types and can partially replicate human tissues biologically and mechanistically outside the body. Given their human cell composition, they are more likely to predict outcomes in people rather than animals that have species-specific differences.
Why can’t we completely replace animals yet?
Researchers caution that current non-animal methods may not yet fully capture the complexity of a whole complete living biological system. A human body is dynamic, made up of multiple organs, cell types and connecting systems. Non-animal-based techniques need more advancements to ensure they closely mimic our body systems and produce consistent and reliable results.
“I think animal research should be conducted only if the research question cannot be reliably answered using alternative methods, or if it cannot be conducted safely in a human clinical trial” – clinician researcher.
“The testing of new HIV cure therapies goes through stages and once these experiments reach animal testing and are successful, I’m just as excited as the researchers as I feel this is a huge step to showing the research works and can advance to early clinical trials. Experiments done in the lab (petri dish), are too early stage and any success is a theory but could be a promising theory”- community member with lived experiences.
Other ethical issues.
There remain other ethical issues. If new experimental drugs and interventions (for example DNA editing) were to be tested in people straightaway, participants could be subjected to unknown potential harm and risk (but those risks might be successfully identified in animal-based testings), and recruitment of participants in clinical trials must not be exploitative. Alternatives to animal models have their own ethical dilemmas. For instance, are the alternative models representative of the diverse human population including age, gender and ethnicity? Also, lab grown brains are becoming very complex. Could they become sentient? (read more on this interesting interview from the organoid expert here!)
Examples of animal use in HIV research.
HIV infection is not confined to a single cell type or tissue, rather it is very complex. It involves the whole body and unfolds over multiple years. It is difficult to accurately model all aspects of HIV infection in a petri dish, and therefore animal research remains an important component of HIV studies.
HIV is a type of chronic infection and results in immune exhaustion, a state in which the body’s immune cells become less effective at fighting disease over time. To better understand this process, researchers often study a virus called Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus (LCMV), which naturally infects mice and can establish a long-term infection. It has become one of the most important models for understanding how chronic infections affect the immune system and has helped drive the development of new treatments aimed at restoring immune function.
Despite the valuable insights gained from models such as LCMV, conventional laboratory mice cannot fully mimic HIV infection or its impact on the human immune system, as HIV primarily infects human immune cells (and a closely related virus known as SIV can infect monkeys). Given this, human immune system mice (mice engineered with human immune cells) and monkeys are commonly used to test new therapeutics to achieve a cure for HIV.
“If the investigation involves a new therapeutic not previously tested in humans, then safety data from animal models would make me more comfortable in recommending involvement in a first-in-human clinical trial” – clinician researcher.
“For me, it’s less about animal use alone and more about the quality, consistency, and scale of the data. That said, I would feel more comfortable recommending or participating in a trial knowing there had been some success in animal models. Testing in complex biological systems feels like an important step toward making trials safer for humans” – community member with lived experiences.
“As someone living with HIV and taking medications that were historically developed using animal models, I recognise the role animals have played in past scientific progress. At the same time, this personal connection has prompted me to think critically about whether continued reliance on animal testing remains scientifically and ethically justified given current technological advancements”- community member with lived experiences.
However, monkeys are also different from humans. Multiple drugs that showed promising results in monkeys for HIV cure interventions have failed in people. For this reason, there is a lot of ongoing work with more human relevant approaches. One example is HIV research using brain organoids. Brain organoids have been developed by researchers to model HIV-associated inflammation in the brain to explore potential therapeutic strategies. It is a powerful platform however these brain organoids are currently very tiny and unable to fully represent the complexity and functions of human brains.
“HIV is notorious for having data that has looked good in monkey models with SIV, but then not demonstrated the same results in humans with HIV” – clinician researcher.
Overall, animals still play a vital role in biomedical research. They contribute to solving health challenges and developing new therapeutics. Although current alternative non-animal-based methods cannot yet fully replace animals, they represent an important step toward reducing animal use and improving the precision of biomedical research.
Animal research needs to be transparent, ethical, humane and responsible. The research community understands and appreciates that animal use in research is a privilege given to researchers by society and the responsibilities that come with animal research.
Written by Kiho Tanaka, Postdoctoral research fellow, and Sining Li, PhD student at the Doherty
We sincerely thank all the interviewees who took their time to share their voices with us.
