Surely, doing an experimental study with a dangerous drug, that requires a long complicated treatment (e.g. rituximab), would be magnitudes easier and faster if the test subjects were animals. The lack of regulations and formalized processes would speed things up a lot.
The big problem, apart from mouse models not always being relevant to humans as their biology has differences, is how to induce ME in them, if that's possible. You can't just breed thousands of mice and hope some of them start behaving differently and assume it's ME.
So you would presumably have to try to mimic the triggers of ME in humans, perhaps give them an infection or a series of infections and make them exercise while they are sick instead of resting. And then pick out the ones that seem to stay sick after the others recover. And do a 2 day CPET with them and measure lactate levels perhaps, or give them a Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire to fill in.
It all sounds so improbably ridiculous, it seems silly to even try.
Nope. I set up the use of rituximab for autoimmunity and I went nowhere near an animal model. There was no point because there are no animal models of spontaneous human autoimmunity of much use. There are none for rheumatoid arthritis. Animals are very useful for working out normal physiology. But disease physiology tends to be unique to a species. We had to work out what was going in humans using humans. Many thousands of animal experiments had been done but none were of any help to me.
The possibility exists that I may not be a mouse.
Surely testing needs to occur to establish this before using mouse models.
I am not sure how you could blind such a study.
I am not sure how you could blind such a study.
Hmm, that’s useful feedback. This query has come from a researcher outside ME/CFS (looking at a different condition), wondering if there are useful mouse models of ME/CFS to which they could apply their work (also done in mice).
We'll just inject you with something so that you won't be able to tell either way. Now hold still.The possibility exists that I may not be a mouse.
Surely testing needs to occur to establish this before using mouse models.
I am not sure how you could blind such a study.
Nope. I set up the use of rituximab for autoimmunity and I went nowhere near an animal model.
Only a possibility?The possibility exists that I may not be a mouse.
I am not an expert on mice, therefore I cannot be certain what is, and is not, a mouse.Only a possibility?
That would explain why your up at 3am, mice are nocturnal.
It makes me wonder, have there been any animal models of disease that have actually led to effective treatments in humans? I'm guessing the list is quite short?
@Simone the closest I can think of is Gulf War Illness which presents clinically very similar to ME/CFS and where the disease trigger is known. They have injected mice with the same "cocktail" that the 1990 Gulf War troops received and have observed similar illness behaviours. Something for your researcher contact to look into.This query has come from a researcher outside ME/CFS (looking at a different condition), wondering if there are useful mouse models of ME/CFS to which they could apply their work (also done in mice).
All this being true if i were you i would not admit to being a mouse. Ending up in a laboratory and being subjected to forced experimentation would not be pleasant.I am not an expert on mice, therefore I cannot be certain what is, and is not, a mouse.
And people keep saying that a mouse model is an appropriate one for studying ME, I have ME, therefore the possibility exists that I may be a mouse.
They are after all experts, and I am not.