Experimental design & analysis

Any scientific technique or method should only be used when it is appropriate to what the researcher hopes to discover. Research on living animals is carried out when it will reveal information which cannot be obtained in other ways. Studies may look at the behaviour of animals in a particular environment, or in response to a particular condition, as part of the experiment.

Research often uses isolated tissues from animals to study the interaction of cells within the body. While these studies do not involve experiments on living animals, the animals used are bred specifically for scientific purposes, and this work also classes as animal experimentation. Other techniques, such as cell culture, rely on products derrived from laboratory animals. Details of some common laboratory techniques which involve animals are given here, along with information about how experiments can be designed, and the data produced analysed, effectively.

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Experimental design