It's not completely a waste of time. Animal research is extremely expensive in terms of time, man hours and money[1]. Whatever shortcut you can take to detect i

It's not completely a waste of time. Animal research is extremely expensive in terms of time, man hours and money[1]. Whatever shortcut you can take to detect ineffective treatments before reaching this stage is arguably going to cost you more time and money than raising a colony of rats for testing your hypothesis out. [1]: I own 4 (once 5) pet rats. They are only a small colony and, while I love them, I don't keep them at lab standards (for example, I don't a vet sleeping on the couch 24/7 in case of emergencies), yet, in a bad month, I could end up with spending 1000+$ for their health. Now, imagine that for the health standard of lab rats/mice and the numbers required for research.