Research object laboratory mouse: creature without equivalent in the animal kingdom
Photo:Jochen Tack / ddp media
The laboratory mouse is the most frequently used animal model in research. There is a mouse for just about every human ailment - it is used to study diseases and develop drugs. This is good because the mouse's genetic characteristics, husbandry, and diet are standardized so that experiments can be compared and repeated.
And it's bad. Because like the rodent, no creature ekes out its existence in real life. "There is no equivalent to these mice in the animal kingdom," explains physician Stephan Rosshart from the Freiburg University Medical Center. Therefore, knowledge gained through them, for example about the immune system, applies to other laboratory mice, but often only to a limited extent for their wild counterparts or even for humans.
At the beginning of July, Andrew Flies from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania and colleagues in the journal "Science" therefore called for a move away from immunology, which is limited to mice and rats. The scientists want to expand the research to include other species and more complex environmental conditions.
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