ABSTRACT
Pigs have long been used in studying mammalian anatomy and physiology. Since the past century, they have been used to investigate aspects of human illnesses with the aim of understanding and improving human health and the treatment of disease and since the mid-1950s minipigs have been increasingly used by the biomedical research community in
addition to conventional pigs. The anatomy and physiology of minipigs are comparable to that of conventional pigs for most purposes as the most notable difference is their signi¢- cantly smaller size. That makes them more manageable in the laboratory and well suited to prolonged investigations, something which is very challenging with conventional pigs.
