Dr Kimiora Hēnare (Ngāti Hauā, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa) is a Research Fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland. Kimiora explains why animal models such as mice are an important part of cancer research.
Please note that the video footage of the laboratory mice is from the United Kingdom and not from the University of Auckland.
It is recommended that educators view this video before showing it in the classroom. It includes footage of people with cancer and may be triggering.
Questions for discussion
- Kimiora says that cancer cells in a tumour are almost like an organ. What do you think he means by this?
- Why does Kimiora refer to laboratory mice as complicated biological systems?
Using the science capabilities
This video offers opportunities to explore the science capability interpret representations.
- Cancer cells (00.25–00:59). Discuss the purpose of the animation and how it illustrates the complexity of cancer cells and tumours.
- The lab mouse as a biological system (01:05–01:11). Discuss the purpose of this image in showing why animal models are used to investigate cancer in humans and how the image gets the message across.
Transcript
Dr Kimiora Hēnare
I’m a cancer researcher and I’m mostly interested in how you give the doctors great new medicines to help treat cancer patients.
Most of the time, cancer research is conducted using cells in a plastic dish, and it’s a nice way to answer really simple questions like whether a treatment will work to kill cancer cells.
The reality of cancer is that it’s far more complicated than just a single group of cells in a plastic dish. And what we know is that cancers and tumours, which are like a ball of cancer cells, are really, really complicated and they engage with lots of different types of cells in the body to help that tumour to grow. It’s almost like an organ. The cancer cells are growing, but they still need a blood supply. They still need nutrients. They still have to evade and escape the immune system.
And so what that means is it’s very hard to grow all of those cells together in a plastic dish. So you need a complicated biological system that the laboratory mouse gives us to do the cutting-edge cancer research that we need to do.
In the last two decades, cancer therapy has really moved in an exciting direction towards harnessing our immune system to fight back.
The immune system is actually really good at fighting against cancer. When you get cancer though, usually what that means is those cancer cells have found a way to hide or escape from the immune system.
And that’s why you need things like animal models to get that full complicated realistic biology to be able to gather that information. In fact, laboratory animals were pivotal in bringing those new immunotherapies to the clinic.
Acknowledgements
Dr Kimiora Hēnare, Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland
Advisors: Professor Georgina Tuari Stewart and Dr Sally Birdsall
Multi-pipette in action; comparison of human and mouse biology; and all footage of laboratory mice and rats, Understanding Animal Research. CC BY 4.0
Patient with stent being walked by hafakot, and cancer patient with partner on beach by kopitinphoto. Licensed through 123RF Ltd
