FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
General Questions

1. What is Science?
2. What is Biomedical Research?
3. What are Biomedical Research Methods?
4. What are Nonhuman Animal Models?
5. What is Clinical Research and What are Human Clinical Trials?
6. What are Epidemiological Studies?
7. What Difference has Biomedical Research Made to Human Health?

FAQ — The Care of Use of Animals in Biomedical Research (8-15)

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2. WHAT IS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH?
(Taken from Unit I, Chapter 2, of the Rx for Science Literacy teacher manual.)

What do you think of when you hear the term "basic research?" Does a picture of a scientist in a white lab coat working feverishly with test tubes, bacterial cultures and beakers of boiling chemicals come to mind? How about a scientist sitting in front of a computer working on complicated mathematical calculations that could explain the action of certain physiological processes? What about a field researcher observing the behavior of wild animals as they try to survive in nature? If you pictured any one of these or something similar, you were on the right track. All of these are examples of basic research.

Basic research is research conducted to increase fundamental knowledge and understanding of the physical, chemical and functional mechanisms of life processes and disease. It is not directed to solving any particular biomedical problem in humans or animals. This type of research often involves observing, describing, measuring and manipulating natural systems. It provides the building blocks upon which other types of research are based.

Basic research is often the hardest type of research to define because it is an area of science seeking to answer fundamental questions that are not necessarily focused on any specific disease or disorder. In most cases basic scientists are seeking to add to the primary storehouse of knowledge by explaining how processes in living organisms develop and function. If we don't know how a life process functions normally, we won't know how to recognize and treat it when it functions abnormally. Results from basic research add pieces to the immensely complex puzzle of life.

A researcher often cannot predict exactly how his or her work will contribute to the solution of a particular medical advance. In a study of the top 10 developments in cardiovascular and pulmonary medicine, Comroe and Dripps found that over 40 percent of the research needed to realize a particular advancement was conducted by a scientist whose goal at the time was unrelated to the medical advancement.1

Examples of Basic Research Contributing to the Study of AIDS

The following examples of basic research contributing to the study and understanding of one of the world's most frightening threats, AIDS, were published in The Scientist, June 28, 1993, p.7, and are still true:

• Biologists study the structure of CD4 (a protein embedded in the cell surface of helper T-lymphocytes); HIV invades cells by first attaching to the CD4 molecule (CD4 receptor).
• Immunologists ask basic questions about T-cells (also known as T lymphocytes; a thymus-derived white blood cell that participates in a variety of cell-mediated immune reactions).
• Geneticists manipulate genes that the virus uses to replicate.
• Scientists conduct basic research in the molecular structure of the virus.
• Virologists conduct basic research in the genetics of the virus.

1 Comroe, Jr., J.H. and Dripps, R.D. (1976). Scientific basis for the support of biomedical science, Science, 192, 105-111.

(Information for this section is used with permission from Science for Life: Exploring Animal Models in Biomedical Research, 1993, Florida State University.)

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