The value of using chicken eggs to study cancer has been highlighted in a recent video, which holds the potential to reduce how many mice are used in this field.

The documentary, by EARA member Understanding Animal Research, in collaboration with King’s College London, both UK, focuses on research at King’s that investigates how tumours can develop resistance to therapy – the understanding of which could help to provide alternative treatments for patients to improve their survival.

This work is usually done in mice because tumours can be grown in the animals, before being imaged and analysed to understand how they respond to treatment in a living system that is affected by different factors.

One alternative approach being explored by the lab of Tim Witney, Professor of Molecular Imaging at King’s, is using fertilised chicken eggs instead of mice to study tumours. The membrane surrounding the chicken embryo has many blood vessels, providing a good surface on which to grow tumours, and the eggs are only used for study before 14 days, after which the embryo would begin to experience pain.

Maddy George, a research assistant at King’s, said: “We don’t think this model is ready to replace mice altogether, but it provides a really helpful intermediate between in vitro and in vivo studies that could really reduce the number of mice that are needed for animal research.”