ReportsnReports.com: Animal Models for Therapeutic Strategies

Online, June 20, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Model organisms have long been a mainstay of basic and applied research in the life sciences. Among model organisms, it is model animals that have had a central place in medical research and in pharmaceutical and biotechnology company research, including drug discovery, preclinical studies, and toxicology. Although pharmaceutical companies have long employed animal models based on such mammalian species as mice and rats, dogs, cats, pigs, and primates, more recently the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry has also adopted several invertebrate and lower vertebrate animal models that have emerged from academic laboratories. These animal models include the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly Drosophila, and the zebrafish. The adoption of invertebrate and zebrafish animal models by industry has been driven by the advent of genomics, especially the finding that not only genes, but also pathways, tend to be conserved during evolution.

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Researchers use animal models in basic research, in developing new therapeutic strategies for treating human diseases, and in drug discovery research (including target identification and validation, drug screening and lead optimization, and toxicity and safety screening), as well as in preclinical studies of drug safety and efficacy. The use of animal models in developing novel therapeutic strategies for human diseases overlaps with basic research that uses animal models to understand physiological and disease pathways. But its aim is to achieve knowledge of pathways and targets in a disease that leads to the development of new paradigms for discovery and development of drugs or other therapeutics. It thus also overlaps with use of animal models in drug discovery. The use of animal models in development of novel therapeutic strategies is the main emphasis of this report.

Developing animal models that are more predictive of efficacy is an iterative process. But progress is being made, as researchers apply new knowledge and experimental approaches Executive Summary in elucidating the biology of particular diseases to creation of animal models. Researchers developing new drugs for complex diseases are well advised to test drugs in more than one animal model and in mouse strains of different genetic backgrounds. They should also, if possible, employ translational efficacy and/or pharmacodynamic biomarkers to link the efficacy seen in preclinical studies with clinical results.