Why We Need Volunteers for Clinical Research
Human volunteers form the basis of clinical research and their participation is crucial.  Researchers need data and materials from volunteers – both healthy individuals and patients with specific medical conditions – to be able to answer questions about health and disease, such as:

• Does this potential new treatment work better than existing ones?
• Does this surgical procedure improve patient outcomes (lead to less pain, shorter recovery time, fewer side effects, etc)?
• Is this a more effective way of diagnosing diseases and health problems at an earlier stage? 

 In particular, healthy volunteers play an important role in the following two circumstances:

(i) Investigation of potential new treatments

Potential new treatments are first studied in laboratories and animal models to help gather as much information as possible about them. If this information shows promise, then the potential new treatment will be tested on human volunteers.  The first stage of clinical trials usually involves testing in healthy volunteers, and starts with very small doses to observe the safety and effectiveness of the potential new treatment in humans.  As the research progresses, it is introduced to patients with the medical condition it is intended for and tested in more people to be sure that it is effective. 

(ii) Non-interventional studies to better understand specific diseases

Healthy volunteers are also required in clinical research that compares them to patients with specific medical conditions to better understand the impact of the condition. Healthy volunteers serve the purpose of a control group here.  In other words, the healthy volunteers act as a benchmark to help ascertain what is considered to be healthy.