Survey Results: Just because you can, Does it mean you should?

Well the results of the poll are in.

Question: Do you want to know whether blood or plasma from young animals can stimulate faster remyelination in older animals using the parabiosis experiment?


The majority of you who responded were in favour of performing the parabiosis experiment to determine whether something in young blood helped myelin repair. So with this positive result, you may be pleased to know that these experiments have already been done and progress has moved forward. I won't give you the good news so as not to steal the thunder of the people doing the work because it has yet to officially hit the scientific newstands.

Interestingly, there was a few of you that thought it was wrong to do the experiment but really wanted to get the answer. This highlights the ethical dilemmas that can occur, especially if you have a potential vested interest in the outcome.

All studies on people and other animals that Prof G or the MouseDoctor want to do, go through independent ethical approval processes. So you know not everything gets an easy ride, so it is not a rubber stamping exercise.