Experts Doubt the Usefulness of Lab Mice in Medical Research
For decades, medical research has relied on experiments conducted on mice. However, experts are now questioning the usefulness of lab mice, as numerous medical results cannot be transferred from mice to humans. According to Shaw Warren from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, studies conducted on mice are rarely confirmed in later studies on humans. This is particularly true for medical studies on inflammatory processes, which are involved in many diseases and injuries and alter gene activity.
To clarify the question of the transferability of research results, a consortium of around 20 research institutions compared the effects of such processes in humans and mice for the first time. They analyzed blood samples from over 400 people who had been exposed to blunt trauma, burns, or bacterial toxins, as well as healthy individuals. The researchers then analyzed the white blood cells for RMA, which provides information on the production of certain proteins. They then checked the body reactions of three different strains of mice with comparable injuries. The inflammation changed the expression of over 5,500 genes, 4,900 of which have similar genes in mice. However, their changes hardly resembled those of human genes.
While the physical reactions of humans were very similar to each other regardless of the cause, the mice differed significantly depending on the strain, even with the same type of injury. In addition, the duration of the reactions was very different between humans and mice. The researchers were surprised by the weak correlation between the genomic reactions in the mouse models and those reactions in human injuries, especially given the worldwide use of mice as models for human inflammation. They recommend exploring new approaches to improve the possibilities for researching human diseases.
The researchers emphasize that their new results only apply to inflammatory processes and are not transferable to other research fields. While the validity of mouse models for imitating inflammatory processes in humans is being questioned, it is important to note that this is just one area of research. The results suggest that new approaches are needed to improve the possibilities for researching human diseases.
