? Biomedical use of animal models continues to provide valuable insights into the physiology and pathophysiology of the mammalian respiratory tract, and various animal models have provided key advances in the understanding and treatment of human respiratory disease. Laboratory rodents represent the largest proportion of animals used in human biomedical research, with their value arising both from their economy as well as from the ability of researchers to manipulate the genome of these animals to identify the role of specific genes or gene products. At the same time, the value of domestic animals such as dogs, cats, horses, and livestock is increasingly appreciated by the biomedical research community due to their physiological and teleological similarity to humans, as well as the natural occurrence of diseases analogous to important human diseases. Thus, these large animal models are unmatched for their value in translational research. However, due to the cost and difficulty of employing these models in human biomedical research, they are underutilized as research tools. The purpose of this program is to present the current data regarding the more common and well-characterized domestic animal models of human respiratory disease in the context of their strengths and weaknesses relative to laboratory rodent models as well as the relevant human population. Speakers will be selected based on their first-hand experience in using these models as basic and/or translational tools for human-oriented biomedical research. The program will conclude with a critical discussion on the possible strategies for making these models more accessible to the biomedical community, and biomedical research funding more accessible to those investigators seeking to use these models for the advancement of biomedical knowledge. The symposium will be co-sponsored by the Veterinary Comparative Respiratory Society, a scientific organization with a 25 year history of holding annual international scientific conferences on respiratory physiology and pathophysiology of domestic animals. The conference will emphasize the development of interinstitutional collaborations and the integration of young investigators into the biomedical science community. Understanding complex human disease and the development and testing of suitable treatments requires the use of complex animal models of those diseases. Such models are typically domestic animals such as dogs, cats, horses, and cattle, in which similar diseases occur naturally. This symposium will review the current knowledge and practical challenges of these models in order to make them more accessible to the biomedical research community. ? ? ?
