- Ryu Jiwon -
The valve opens. The hissing sound of escaping gas breaks the stillness of the once silent laboratory. A faint scratching comes from the plastic cage walls. Thirty seconds pass. The silence returns as I close the valve, ensuring the subjects are still. Today, I euthanized ten mice. It is not an unusual occurrence—this has been part of my weekly routine for the past one year and ten months. Yet, it remains a task I am unwilling to grow accustomed to, one I consciously resist normalizing.
LMO—Living Modified Organisms—refers to genetically altered organisms tailored to human needs and preferences. My work involves feeding them, administering drugs, conducting experiments, and ultimately improving human life through their sacrifice. More specifically, I use their contributions to develop and research medical devices that enhance our quality of life.
I dream of a society where loved ones are not blamed for the high costs of medical devices. My ambition is to design efficient, affordable medical devices and introduce them to the market. Around five years ago, I took the first step toward this vision by forming a startup team focused on medical devices. However, the journey was far from easy. Beyond the challenges of development, the road to launching a product was fraught with regulatory approvals, clinical trials, and manufacturing certifications. To gain FDA approval, rigorous academic validation was essential. Although we received investment offers, my team—aware of our limited expertise and knowledge—chose to disband the startup.
My next milestone was joining a research lab. There, I conducted research using medical devices and contributed to the development of diagnostic medical devices. It was exciting. Collaborating with tertiary hospitals, which had seemed inaccessible during my startup days, and publishing in esteemed journals brought me closer to my dream. Although my time in the lab was less than two years, it felt like substantial progress for an undergraduate student. Yet, amidst the pride of contributing to humanity’s well-being, a lingering question began to solidify in my heart:
Is animal experimentation for the extension of human life justified?
From a young age, I had been deeply interested in technologies that extended and enriched human life. Biomedical research, in my eyes, was invaluable work, and I pursued this path without hesitation. However, as I began conducting animal experiments, my previously unwavering beliefs started to crack. Witnessing the resilience of younger lives as I euthanized them, I questioned the ethics of sacrificing animals to save humans. This cognitive dissonance grew more profound as I grappled with the realities of my work.
Charles Darwin, a theology graduate, boarded the HMS Beagle and emerged as the naturalist who discovered the theory of evolution. When he reached the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, he observed finches whose forms varied depending on their habitats and diets. Although he recognized the groundbreaking nature of his findings, he hesitated to publish them immediately, fearing societal backlash. It was only after receiving a letter on biogeography from his student, Alfred Wallace, during Wallace’s stay in Indonesia, that Darwin published his evolutionary theory—20 years after his initial discovery. Those years of internal turmoil, testing his theories against the prevailing norms, fascinated me. I wanted to understand, even if just a fraction, what Darwin felt during those moments. With this in mind, I boarded a plane to the Galápagos, hoping to plant the seed of understanding within myself.