• Question: Why are mice used for monoclonal antibodies and not humans?

    Asked by anon-230928 to Tom, Steven, Jessica, Haafizah, Clio, Bruno Silvester on 19 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Bruno Silvester Lopes

      Bruno Silvester Lopes answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Transgenic mice (mice that have had their genomes altered) are used for the purpose of studying gene functions. Mice are used because the antibodies they produce can be effective in humans, although monoclonal antibodies can now be generated for human use without mice by using laboratory based vitro techniques because animal protection groups fought for many years to end monoclonal antibody production.

    • Photo: Jessica Mitchell

      Jessica Mitchell answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Mice have always been used to test drugs before they are used on humans. This is becasue mice are small and easy to keep alive in labs, they breed easilly and like Bruno says we can alter their genomes. We cant keep humans in a lab to test things on them, this would be unethical. However we dont always need to use mice now as there are techniques which allow us to test drugs (and other products) on tissue (skin/muscle etc) that is grown in the lab.

    • Photo: Tom Snelling

      Tom Snelling answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      to produce antibodies we have to inject animals with a protein. It would be unethical to inject a human with a protein and collect antibodies, although there are some antibodies I use that were made in humans but it is rare

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