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Homework Assignment One

Read “A Case in Point,” on the use of animals in the development of the polio vaccine in this chapter. Find and research another example of how the use of animals has made a strong and lasting impact on human and/or animal medicine. Write a few paragraphs describing the nature of the disease or problem, its burden on human and/or animal populations, how it has been brought under control, and how the use of animals contributed to the medical advance.

A few suggested topics follow, though this is not an exhaustive list:
• Cardiac surgery, including the development of the heart-lung machine and of modern anesthetics
• Chemotherapy and radiation for cancer treatment
• Development of antibiotics
• Development of kidney dialysis
• Discovery of insulin and the mechanism of diabetes
• Drugs to treat depression and mental illness
• Organ transplantation, including drugs to control transplant rejection
• Understanding and treatment of substance abuse
• Vaccines other than polio (diphtheria, canine distemper, feline leukemia, pertussis, tetanus, yellow fever, typhus, influenza, hepatitis A, chicken pox, etc.)
— OR —
Choose a particular species of interest and write a few paragraphs describing the contributions of that species to advances in biomedicine. Include some discussion of the reason(s) that species was chosen as a model; include at least three examples of areas in which the species has made important contributions; and make some mention of areas in which the species is used in ongoing research today.