So, you've been working with small animals and you want to move up to larger experimental models. Perhaps you're looking to more closely emulate the human condition, or maybe you're developing a vaccine for a specific large animal species. In any case, how do you go about it? Here are 10 things you need to do.
You can work with dogs, cats, cows, pigs, horses, or chimps, among others; what you choose depends largely on your needs. Cats make good models for allergy studies, cattle are useful for prion work, and monkeys are good for research into cognition and social behavior. "For human disease, I think the pig is one of the best models there is, because its physiology is so similar to that of humans," says Max F. Rothschild of Iowa State University, and National Pig Genome Coordinator at the US Department of Agriculture. "Pigs can even get diabetes."
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