• Question: Why do you use mice in your research and not other animals or ones closer to humans??

    Asked by natalierogers to Mel, Jen, Jill, Phil, Stef on 15 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by rosiejoy123, abovethenoise04.
    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      In my current work I don’t use mice but there’s a couple of reasons that they’re really useful.

      We can change their DNA or blueprint, so if we wanted to see what a part of their cell does, we can change their blueprint so that all of that part of the cell glows and we can see it! We can’t do this with humans, and it’s not as well worked out in a lot of other animals

      They don’t take long to have babies! Quite simple, but if you want to grow different strains, you don’t want to wait 6 months to a year before you can do any work!

      They’re small! Space is always a big issue because they have a very special and super clean environment so you know that your results aren’t being changed by infections! These cost a lot so it’s good to have something small. Also, imagine trying to deal with some pigs!

      You’re right though, there’s quite a bit of difference between us and mice, I personally think that animals are good models for a start, but all research for humans should ultimately then be checked out in humans!

    • Photo: Melissa Brereton

      Melissa Brereton answered on 17 Mar 2013:

      Stefan is right! I would just like to add that there are also a lot of experiments that are used to diagnose patients with diseases that we can perform on mice. For instance one way we diagnose humans with diabetes is to give them a sugar drink and measure the levels of glucose in their blood- we can perform the same test on mice.

      We also know all the genetic code of mice so we know exactly where each gene in the body is located so if we want to find out how the gene causes breast cancer works, we know exactly where to look in the DNA of a mouse. Then we can alter it (mutate it) and find out how it causes cancer and how to treat it. We don’t know this information in other animals so that’s why we use mice

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