BE NICE TO YOUR MICE

Linda at 25

 

Mice are back in the news.  Way back on 3/12/12 I wrote a blog called “Forget dogs: Mice are man’s best friend.”  This was, of course in recognition of the supremely important role mice play in cancer research: what you can’t inflict on people you can test using our murine friends.  Then nine months later I changed my mind (9/19/12), occasioned by the astounding news that some dogs can detect some kinds of cancer – by smell!  This has spurred all sorts of research into the possibility of detecting cancer by “sniffing” phonemes, without much result as yet.  But who knows?  Maybe someday.

Well, mice are making a comeback.  An article from the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that mice are being u3sed to test the effectiveness of various chemotherapeutic drugs.  The way it seems to work is something like this:  You acquire a few lab mice, take a slice of your tumor and graft it on to the poor little devil – and then test your drug.  For instance: maybe there are four candidate drugs but no way to know a priori which if any will work.  You acquire four mice and test a single drug on each.  This should work; provided, of course, that you can be assured that your mice are biochemically equivalent to you – which is by no means entirely certain.

There is a powerful disincentive to pursue this line of therapy, however – cost.  Apparently it runs about $10,000 per mouse, with no help from the insurance companies.  This is all highly experimental at present; stay tuned.

Another OVCA-related article appeared in a recent British publication.  It has long been known that eating red mean is conducive to the acquisition of all sorts of cancers.  The question has been: why?  It was thought that grilling produced some kind of toxin that was responsible.  However, grilling chicken or fish produces no such result.  Now it appears that a sugar molecule – specifically something called Neu5Gc does the damage.  This sugar is found in all sorts of different mammals, but not in chicken or fish.  Or, as it turns out, Homo sapiens.  Thus, when we eat red meat we effectively insert a “foreign” substance into our body, one which arouses the immune system.  Inflammation duly ensues.  And what does chronic inflammation do?  It somehow lubricates the cancer-acquisition process.  Why this should be true is a deep mystery to me, but apparently it is.

And how do we know all this?  Mouse models, of course.  As Bunny Schneider once Commented:  Bless the little mouse that gives its life for us.

Want to read the article?  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2890243/Scientists-crack-red-meat-linked-cancer-SUGAR-molecule-blame.html