Comparative medicine is a distinct discipline of experimental medicine that uses animal models of human and animal disease in translational and biomedical research.[1]: 2 [2] In other words, it relates and leverages biological similarities and differences among species to better understand the mechanism of human and animal disease. It has also been defined as a study of similarities and differences between human and veterinary medicine including the critical role veterinarians, animal resource centers, and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees play in facilitating and ensuring humane and reproducible lab animal care and use.[3] The discipline has been instrumental in many of humanity's most important medical advances.