A more diverse microbiome for lab mice

Lab mice are raised in sterile environments and using these mice for all research would be like recruiting clinical trial participants who had never spent time outside. In a newly published study, researchers created what they think is a better model: a mouse that is genetically a lab mouse, but that has the microbiome from a wild mouse. The scientists gave the new “wildling mice” two separate treatments that had shown promise in preclinical work but ultimately failed in human trials. The new mice failed to respond to the treatments, which had also been the case with humans. “Our mice, in this case, might have been able to predict people’s response,” study co-author Dr. Stephan Rosshart told me. A better mouse model could save billions of dollars and time spent pursuing clinical trials that may not pan out, the authors write.