3 ms·

Mice are physiologically small humans with tails and fur. Findings in mice are very relevant to humans.

by aydyn 4y ago

jjallen 4y ago
I’ve always wondered what percentage of mice (and other non human animal) findings turned out to be applicable to humans as well. Anyone have an idea?
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  Not confident on diabetes. The biophysical dynamics of insulin are super different in mice - they have two, one of which is missing a highly conserved amino acid across all vertebrates that is at the hinge of the critical structural element of insulin. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.649255/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.6492... Literally no one talks about this in mice metabolic research. I would not be surprised if a huge majority of mouse researchers in diabetes are unaware.
  - mnw21cam 4y ago
    I work in human diabetes genetics. We're just publishing work on a gene that doesn't even exist in mice - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.23.21262262v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.23.21262262v... Part of our message is basically what you just said. We have multiple examples of genes where mutations cause diabetes in humans but don't in mice. The other one we have is the fact that human pancreatic beta cell lines in labs don't even 100% act like human pancreatic beta cells in humans.
- tsol 4y ago
  >The first thing to note is of those drugs which pass animal tests, 94% will fail during human clinical trials stages (Phases 1 – 3)*. https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/nine-out-of-ten-statistics-are-taken-out-of-context https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/nine-out... But to be fair, there's a huge failure rate for pharmaceutical drugs in general.
Symmetry 4y ago
For many things yes. But humans have been under much more intense selective pressure for longer lifespans so easy interventions along those lines that work in mice have a history of not panning out in humans.

Mice are physiologically small humans with tails and fur. Findings in mice are very relevant to humans.

by aydyn 4y ago

Mice are physiologically small humans with tails and fur. Findings in mice are very relevant to humans.

I’ve always wondered what percentage of mice (and other non human animal) findings turned out to be applicable to humans as well. Anyone have an idea?

throwawaymaths 4y ago
Not confident on diabetes. The biophysical dynamics of insulin are super different in mice - they have two, one of which is missing a highly conserved amino acid across all vertebrates that is at the hinge of the critical structural element of insulin. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.649255/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.6492... Literally no one talks about this in mice metabolic research. I would not be surprised if a huge majority of mouse researchers in diabetes are unaware.
- mnw21cam 4y ago
  I work in human diabetes genetics. We're just publishing work on a gene that doesn't even exist in mice - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.23.21262262v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.23.21262262v... Part of our message is basically what you just said. We have multiple examples of genes where mutations cause diabetes in humans but don't in mice. The other one we have is the fact that human pancreatic beta cell lines in labs don't even 100% act like human pancreatic beta cells in humans.
tsol 4y ago
>The first thing to note is of those drugs which pass animal tests, 94% will fail during human clinical trials stages (Phases 1 – 3)*. https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/nine-out-of-ten-statistics-are-taken-out-of-context https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/nine-out... But to be fair, there's a huge failure rate for pharmaceutical drugs in general.

Symmetry 4y ago

For many things yes. But humans have been under much more intense selective pressure for longer lifespans so easy interventions along those lines that work in mice have a history of not panning out in humans.