Preclinical Trials and Research

Medical research using clinical trials is often done using a step by step process that allows for a trial to be as safe as possible. One of the types of clinical trials that is a very important part of this process that all medical researchers must follow are called preclinical trials. A preclinical trial is defined as the period that occurs before a clinical trial in which testing as well as safety information is collected. This type of test is necessary to see if human testing can begin on a product. A preclinical study is also concerned with ensuring that participants and researchers alike will go about a clinical trial in the most error free manner possible in addition to studying the safety of medication or new medical equipment. A preclinical trial may check the safety for things such as medical procedures and gene therapy solutions as well.

A preclinical trial most often involves toxicity testing by way of animal testing as well as good laboratory practice testing for equipment. Testing in this way helps to make it safer for researchers to conduct clinical trials involving humans as participants. Needless to say the results of the preclinical trial are important to medical research studies as well for the various different types of clinical trials to proceed as scheduled. The animal testing that is involved in many of these tests often involve the two species of murine and canine. This choice of species for the experiments that occur is of course based on which type of animal will give the best correlation to human subjects. The type of animal tested is not limited to these two species though and the type is often changed on a trial by trial basis. Some factors that play into the choosing of different animals include differences in gut and circulatory system, how the enzymes in a particular animal work as well as the metabolites of a specific animal. Obviously there is a lot to consider before actual clinical trials can begin.