Mice in Biomedicine

By Konstantina Bilali Panagiotidou - August 27, 2019



 Mice have earned a special place in the scientific community since scientists have widely used them as the perfect laboratory animals for many decades now. Prior research generally confirms that, mice have the essential similarities needed with the human organism so that they can be used as guinea pigs. In particular, humans and mice share about 30% of the same genetic material. They have a small life span so they can be scientifically observed during their whole life circle and because of this, mice have contributed to the amelioration of medicine. For instance, penicillin was firstly successfully applied on mice, after a lethal injection of streptococcus. This led to the development of antibiotics. In a similar case, mice have assisted in the progress of the gene therapy. As a result of that, Huntington's disease has seemed to have improved after gene therapies were applied on mice. Noteworthy, is the transplant of human cancer cells in these animals.


The academic community has extensively explored the use of mice in regenerative medicine as well. In fact, those small guinea pigs, where the first ones to help in the development of the stem cell therapy. Their embryonic cells were observed and isolated by in vitro culture which led to the creation of a genetic mouse model of disease.

Much attention had been drawn to the famous mouse with an ear on it's back. The image of that mouse, had shocked the public and raised some critical opinions about the ethical part of this procedure. However, it was later revealed that the ear was made from cartilage structure by cow cartilage cells. In other words, there was no human tissue involved and no mutations took place. 


Many years later, scientists took it a step further, when they successfully grew an ear on the back of a mouse by using human stem cells. This experiment, led to an amazing operation- the creation of a prosthetic ear, made from human stem cells from the patients themselves. The new ear, is inserted under the skin on their forearm and develops for some months until it can be transplanted to the head. It’s important to emphasize that during the whole procedure the patient can hear normally. (The same technique can be applied with prosthetic noses.)

Another experiment which has gained much importance in the regenerative community indicated that mice are able to grow back their toes. The animals had their limbs amputated and after an injection of proteins they were able to grow back a part of them. This study introduced a new method and gave hope that in the near future, people who were born with limb deficiency or had they limbs amputated might be able to grow or regrow some parts or all of them.

It has been established that laboratory animals have helped biology, biomedicine, regenerative medicine and have contributed to the growth of medicine and pharmacology. They have helped humans to understand more about their own diseases and enabled them to find many cures. Many investigations however, call into question about the quality of life those animals are given. There have been many reports of abuse, neglect and unethical procedures done to them. The academic community has to ensure the protection and the welfare of those precious animals or else all their tries to improve  human life will be overpowered by their exploitation of nature.





sources : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2405927/
               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QlWBnL0zjU

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