3 ms·
Not a biochemist but: "Many studies are done in mice." Isn't this kind of the issue? Are mouse models really that good of a proxy for humans? How do you validat
by taneq 5y ago
Not a biochemist but: "Many studies are done in mice." Isn't this kind of the issue? Are mouse models really that good of a proxy for humans? How do you validate this?
- anarticle 5y agoThe process in drug discovery is: invitro work, animal models (zebrafish, mice, rats), clinical trials, release to public. It is completely standard for work to be done in mice, and to dismiss it in this way is a nothing burger. There is a piece of truth in that "animals models don't always pan out", but that's the state of the art whether we like it or not. My point is, if you start the criticism at "mice model, opinion rejected", you are rejecting nearly all basic bioscience.
- wins32767 5y agoThey certainly aren't perfect proxies for humans, but they have a lot of advantages: 1) They reproduce quickly. 2) We have inbred several different strains so that every member is genetically identical to all the others of the same sex. 3) There is a huge amount of scientific knowledge already accumulated on mice, and the inbred strains specifically. Different developmental checkpoints, what healthy looks like across basically every dimension. These first two make it possible to do repeatable studies at relatively low costs. The latter allows you to do things like knock out or replace a gene and see see what impacts it has biologically and you can find out in weeks instead of years. Research mice the way biologists reduce their build times.
- MrMan 5y agocall it transfer learning