Helping east meet west. Review of animal models: Assessing the scope of their use in biomedical research, edited by Junichi Kawamata and Edward C. Melby, Jr. New York, Alan R. Liss, Inc., 1987, 398 pp, $65.00
✍ Scribed by Michale E. Keeling
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1989
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 144 KB
- Volume
- 17
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0275-2565
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
To evaluate this publication fairly, the reader must realize that the document is not a collection of articles written for a peer-reviewed journal but rather a reproduction of Proceedings of the Sixth Charles River International Symposium on Laboratory Animals, Kyoto, Japan, 1985. I am sure that liaison was difficult since Japanese contributions outnumbered U S . contributors two to one. I think the editors' priorities are the rapid dissemination of information in the field of animal model use in biomedical research and encouraging more extensive information exchange between veterinary and other biomedical scientists. Even then, it took 2 years to get these presentations into print. Narrative in the text qualifies the effort as a review of recent developments at the time of the symposium and an overview of relevant issues. With these objectives and qualifiers in mind, I think some of the weaknesses of the volume can be overlooked. As a whole, it certainly represents a valuable contemporary update and reference document for laboratory animal veterinary personnel who have to be broadly conversant in animal model selection and care and for investigators in numerous biomedical research disciplines, especially autoimmune disease and genetics. It exemplifies the meeting sponsors' and editors' commitment to expanding the benefits of continuing education through scientific collaboration and information exchange at the international level.
Apparently, the editors went through no selection process on the papers, and in this reviewer's opinion, the quality of the 22 presentations varied between very good and poor. Although the diversity of disciplines addressed adequately reinforces the "important role whole animal models play in modern research," there is very little sense of organization or continuity. The question-and-answer sessions would have been much more "interesting, informative and thought-provoking'' to the reader if these sessions had followed the individual chapters or at least a small group of related papers, instead of being compiled into a chapter at the end of the volume. The typographical errors in text and tables are annoyingly frequent.
Although considerable attention was given to genetic quality assurance in many of the rodent model presentations, the importance of health quality assurance was not emphasized as strongly. Ueyama and Ikehara acknowledged the specific-pathogen-free status of their animals; however, in some cases there was no description of the status of adventitious pathogens or of precautions to maintain a microbially defined animal model. Even when the "Materials and Methods" section acknowledged original source and macroenvironmental control, in at least one instance there was reference to supplemental feeding of "proper fresh vegetables, powdered milk, and sardines," which would seem to make microbial control very difficult. A recent study by Oldstone [1988] provides an excellent example of the