systemic infection
Of Mice, Men, and Medicine
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Source: Wyss Institute and Bill Branson, NIH
The humble laboratory mouse has taught us a phenomenal amount about embryonic development, disease, and evolution. And, for decades, the pharmaceutical industry has relied on these critters to test the safety and efficacy of new drug candidates. If it works in mice, so we thought, it should work in humans. But when it comes to molecules designed to target a sepsis-like condition, 150 drugs that successfully treated this condition in mice later failed in human clinical trials—a heartbreaking loss of decades of research and billions of dollars. A new NIH-funded study [1] reveals why.
