Where Do All The Diseased Mice Come From?
When I was in Denver for the Diabetes Expo, Peter A. Gottlieb, MD was a speaker and something was being said about a cure. I didn’t catch all of what was being said though because a thought popped into my head…big surprise right?
I had meant to write about it at the time, but I forgot about my thought, that was until the news about the study that was until the news about a “cure” that Denise Faustman has been working on is going to human trials, and then my thought returned.
Where do all the diseased mice come from? This is something that I’d really like answered. For some reason, mice are what are used for most every kind of cure you hear about (or at least I hear about, doesn’t matter the disease the cure started in mice). So, where do all the diseased mice come from? For my concern, are they breeding diabetic mice, are they doing something to make them become diabetic. I know we can produce a type 2 mouse, that doesn’t take much more than to over feed it and let it live a sedentary lifestyle (with all due respect to type 2 diabetics and that horrible over generalized stereotype, but it’s all I got.), Type 1 is a different beast though. A Newsweek article, “Diabetes: Of Mice and Men” says that Faustman’s work does not address type-2.
So, once again, where do all the diseased mice come from? What are the doctors that are testing for a cure doing to the mice to make them a Type 1 diabetic? Does it matter that perhaps they weren’t a Type 1 diabetic based on the laws of nature when it comes to the curing the now diseased mouse?
4 Responses to “Where Do All The Diseased Mice Come From?”
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March 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
They do actually breed them. For example, Type 1 research is often done using NOD (Non Obese Diabetic) mice (http://www.informatics.jax.org/external/festing/mouse/docs/NOD.shtml), and there are equivalent models for type 2 as well.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
They do actually breed them. For example, Type 1 research is often done with NOD (non obese diabetic) mce like these ones: http://jaxmice.jax.org/strain/006846.html
There are type 2 varieties out there as well, I am sure.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Dr. Faustman caused mice, who were already alive, to have the autoimmune Type 1. It was important to her that they have the actual autoimmune disease rather than turning them Type 1 by removing their beta cells as other researchers do.
You may be able to find out more about it on the Massachusetts General Hospital website.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I agree with Laura. Dr. Faustman and many other researchers in type 1 diabetes use NOD mice. These have been bred to be more susceptible to getting diabetes. There’s more information about these on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOD_mice.