’We think carefully about how many mice are necessary’

Alfred Zippelius. (Photo: University of Basel, Christian Flierl) - Professor Alfred Zippelius, from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel, has been conducting experiments with mice for several years. In this interview, he explains why he decided to do this and how it advances his research in cancer immunotherapy. Professor Zippelius, why did you start doing experiments with mice 11 years ago? During my research career, I worked for many years without animal experiments and only did experiments with human cells. Then I had a question where I simply couldn't move forward any further, and I integrated animal experiments into my work. If you look at my laboratory today, it's interconnected. Either we start from a very specific question using animal experiments and then validate the result in humans, or we're faced with a problem in a patient, which we then try to answer using an animal model.