Animals are among the everyday "tools" used by medical research institutes and pharmaceutical, virology and toxicology laboratories.
This issue regularly incites heated debate between defenders of animal rights and those who hold the notion of "a necessary sacrifice for scientific advancement".

For centuries, animals have paid a heavy price to man's scientific conquests.
As ideas about living organisms and in particular the status of animals evolved, people began to question animal experimentation in the mid-20th Century.

At the same time, advances in knowledge and technology have little by little enabled the conception and development of alternative methods that avoid the recourse to animal experimentation.

What are these methods? Can they be applied to all domains of research on living beings? Are they scientifically reliable? What are their advantages and disadvantages as opposed to animal testing?

These questions will lead us progressively towards the ultimate point of issue: is there a foreseeable end to animal experimentation? Will scientific research one day be able to do without animal testing?