Billions wasted on mice-testing

[Locutus]

For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers -- sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years and billions of dollars have been wasted following false leads[...]

The paper, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps explain why every one of nearly 150 drugs tested at a huge expense in patients with sepsis has failed. The drug tests all were based on studies in mice. And mice, it turns out, can have something that looks like sepsis in humans, but is very different from the condition in humans.

Medical experts not associated with the study said that the findings should change the course of research worldwide for a deadly and frustrating condition. Sepsis, a potentially deadly reaction that occurs as the body tries to fight an infection, afflicts 750,000 patients a year in the United States, kills one-fourth to one-half of them, and costs the nation $17 billion a year. It is the leading cause of death in intensive-care units.

"This is a game changer," said Dr. Mitchell Fink, a sepsis expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, of the new study.


more


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/s...iseases-on-mice-mislead-report-says.html?_r=0


h/t sda

 

[CDNBear]

Interesting...

Good to see you too.

 

[darkbeaver]

They will be drummed out of their labs and spend their lives living under a bridge. Lab mice have very powerful backers. It's not hard to spot junk science, it always threatens the revenue stream.

 

[Kreskin]

Isn't this what science does, it gets a better understanding and moves forward? Doesn't seem like a waste to me.

 

[Sal]

They need to eliminate the animal testing, I don't care how "close" our DNA is, it's apparently not close enough.

Isn't this what science does, it gets a better understanding and moves forward? Doesn't seem like a waste to me.

Well, except if you died due to a misleading study...well... ya know, it's kind of disheartening when you think of the incorrect optimism based on completely erroneous conclusions.

I agree there are positives but I think the disturbing part is once they decide something is correct it sure takes a long time for them to examine if it really is. And of course anyone who questions it just needs a tinfoil hat. We are so set in our path even when it is wrong the people laugh when others question it.

 

[Kreskin]

Without research and testing we'd still be using sanitized tapeworms.

 

[Goober]

Isn't this what science does, it gets a better understanding and moves forward? Doesn't seem like a waste to me.

Using that one drug as working in mice but not in people should have set off bells a ringing quite some time ago. If it passes in the model and fails in humans then look at the model being used. Why did it take so long.

 

[Kreskin]

Why would a drug company want a drug that doesn't work? In this case they discovered that the two diseases weren't the same, if I understand correctly. If they had known that before then I'm sure they would've changed things up.

 

[Goober]

Why would a drug company want a drug that doesn't work? In this case they discovered that the two diseases weren't the same, if I understand correctly. If they had known that before then I'm sure they would've changed things up.

They failed to map the disease in mice and humans otherwise they would have found they were different. How long would it have taken to map each disease? After 150 failures they looked. A game changer they say- yes for those that are locked into a set procedure.
What is that old saying about beating your head against a wall. It feels better when you stop.

The group had tried to publish its findings in several papers. One objection, Dr. Davis said, was that the researchers had not shown the same gene response had happened in mice.

“They were so used to doing mouse studies that they thought that was how you validate things,” he said. “They are so ingrained in trying to cure mice that they forget we are trying to cure humans.”

“That started us thinking,” he continued. “Is it the same in the mouse or not?”

The group decided to look, expecting to find some similarities. But when the data were analyzed, there were none at all.

“We were kind of blown away,” Dr. Davis said.

The drug failures became clear. For example, often in mice, a gene would be used, while in humans, the comparable gene would be suppressed. A drug that worked in mice by disabling that gene could make the response even more deadly in humans.

Even more surprising, Dr. Warren said, was that different conditions in mice — burns, trauma, sepsis — did not fit the same pattern. Each condition used different groups of genes. In humans, though, similar genes were used in all three conditions. That means, Dr. Warren said, that if researchers can find a drug that works for one of those conditions in people, it might work for all three.

 

[Tonington]

There will always be problems moving from the model to the target organism. I sure as hell wouldn't sign up to be in the early phase study groups looking at toxicity and dose-response relationships.

You still have to consider that comparing trauma, sepsis, and burn victims to model mice is not even an apples to apples comparison for this current study even, as human patients will likely have many genes up- and down-regulated due to the cocktails of drugs they are receiving, whereas mouse studies in a lab seek to minimize any concomitant treatments that could confound the outcome.

It's definitely a big study to take note of, but I don't think it's quite as bad as it's made out to be. Translational medicine is taking off with many new models in other species. Though if they don't sort out their correlates they could end up repeating this. So far from the zebrafish models I've seen, that doesn't seem to be the case. We have a project in our pipeline that originated in human pharma pipeline using the zebrafish to prove that the expected target gene regulation was indeed taking place.