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>guarantees you won't things that can't be learned from the single, genetically uniform mouse type that is used. This is a misrepresentation of the state of mo
by jkimmel 11y ago
>guarantees you won't things that can't be learned from the single, genetically uniform mouse type that is used.
This is a misrepresentation of the state of mouse biology research.
We use many different strains of inbred mice (check out the JAX Labs list of available inbreds)[1].
Inbreeding reduces the genetic variability of our mice, allowing us to control more of the variation in an experiment. This allows us to perform pilot studies with smaller samples sizes while still reaching sufficient statistical power.
This is important -- mouse biology is expensive, and we try to discover as much as possible with limited funding.
If a result merits generalization to multiple backgrounds, it is often tested in multiple inbred strains and an "outbred" strain that is genetically diverse.
[1] - https://www.jax.org/jax-mice-and-services/find-and-order-jax-mice/most-popular-jax-mice-strains https://www.jax.org/jax-mice-and-services/find-and-order-jax...
- joe_the_user 11y agoI think you're confusing my comment, which addresses the inherent limitation of automating particular experimental processes with a criticism about how biological research ought to be conducted. It may well be that uniformity is needed for reproducibility - even adding more controls for the uniformity, biology seems broadly limited by a relatively few particular starting points. As the OP points out, because the vast diversity of biological phenomena, it seems there are variety of things that simply aren't seen with only these starting points (again, not to deny that as practical matter one might still need to limit one's starting points).