What makes studying AIDS difficult is its limitation to humans and macaque monkeys only. So, the scientists up with their arms to find a cure for the disease have developed a “humanized” animal to provide a model for testing treatments!
The scientists have engineered a mouse to have a human immune system capable of showing how the human infection spreads. The new human-mouse hybrid is the first mammalian model that can develop the human AIDS virus.
With obvious excitement with the development, Rowena Johnston, vice president of research for the Foundation for AIDS Research hopes the mice could reveal a number of secrets about HIV. He said,
the cells that it encounters first, how it reaches them, how the cells communicate with other cells, and how the virus migrates to the lymph nodes and multiplies once it gets there.
But, will the mice be able to replicate exactly what happens in infected humans? Afterall, mice aren’t humans!
To know more on how the scientists have given the rodents more complete human immune systems, read here...
