ABOVE: Mice trapped in the wild served as gestational surrogates for lab mice with the goal of seeding the offspring with a more natural microbiome.
PIXABAY, BEN FREWIN
A new mouse model designed with a microbiome similar to that of wild mice may be a better predictor of human responses to some drugs than commonly used lab mice, according to a study published today in Science. The authors repeated two preclinical studies that had demonstrated positive results in mice only to fail when they reached human testing. With the new models, the team saw results that resembled the drugs’ effects in people rather than the previously misleading mouse results.
Mice can be a valuable model for early biomedical research, but many of the drugs that demonstrate promising results in these animals still fail in human trials. Characteristics such as genetics and physiology often take the blame, but researchers are beginning to ...
