Mouses Teat Cured of Cancer

Once again our little brown experimental creatures have come through. Mice no longer have to fear the dreaded "C" word for some types breast cancer. While researchers were working with chemicals associated with the abortion pill, some times called the morning after pill, and then sometimes called the, "Oh SHIT, what have I done?" pill, they have saved untold mouses from the ravages of breast cancer.

Of course these were mouses that were bred to have breast cancer just so the researchers could cure it. Observing the mice on the mend researchers noted the breast tissue of the furry experimental animals resembled that of wild-type pregnant mice, even though they had not become pregnant, suggesting that the proliferation of mammary epithelial cells was altered.

While I have no idea what that means, it appears the normally flat chested mouses developed tits. These tits were no doubt appealing to the male mouses testing Viagra. In addition I'm sure they were very popular at the annual mouse wet t-shirt contest normally held this time of year during spring break.

This is another amazing story staring our little furry experimental animals. These particular mouses might soon appear on "Girl Mouses Gone Wild" which will be taped on location at spring break sites around the world.

It is a great life... if you don't weaken.

The Heart Originates from a Single Cell

I first found this article in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald. I thought that interesting because it's about discoveries in the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School located in Boston.... go figure.

The big news this morning is Researchers have found a single stem cell (in furry little experimental animals of course) that can morph into heart muscle cells or smooth muscle cells or blood vessel cells. They were surprised about this as they apparently thought that different types of cells migrated in the developing fetus in order to form the heart.

Personally I was under the impression that most organs, vessels, muscles... all that innards stuff originated from a single cell. Isn't that what happens when the sperm and egg join in holy matrimony? From this "union" isn't it a single cell that divides into 2 cells then 4 cells then 8 and so on? All this division and multiplication and other higher math functions finally produce a cute little baby.... be it a mouse, whale or human. Well, at least that's what Jimmy Apple told me when I was 8 years old.

So what's the big deal here? First, think of all the mouses in the world with heart disease that can be saved by injecting stem cells (with the proper credentials) into their damaged hearts. The stem cells will grow and replace the damaged cells and the mouses will live happily ever after. As far as humans are concerned, the researchers said, this [discovery] could move scientists nearer to being able to use stem-cell therapies to regenerate tissues to repair congenital heart defects in children and damage caused by heart attacks in adults.

BUT they stressed they were not yet anywhere close to that goal.

So we close once again waiting for these amazing discoveries found in the furry little experimental animals to apply to us-n's of the human persuasion.

Thank you little mouses for your continuing contribution.....

$500 Million Mouse Farm

I started wondering where they found all these mouses, our furry little experimental animals, so I was googling around. I have to say I had no idea. It's kinda creepy and amazing at the same time.

For instance, in the amazing arena, if your researching arthritis and need some furry little experimental animals with that malady it will run you close to $200, each! Two pairs (I don't know if these are mating pairs) of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That’ll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.

WOW!!!!!

And not only that! With proper manipulation... either by man or nature... a set of mouse genes can produce an animal with just about any human ailment, or a reasonable facsimile of said ailment. Strains of mice that succumb to alzheimer's disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and just about anything you can think of are being used to study both the illnesses themselves and potential treatments. As many as 25 million mice are now used in experiments each year.

We are talk'n BIG BUSINESS here. And just what is this business... mouse farms. Yep, mouse farms. You've probably heard of pig farms and horse farms and even fat farms... but that's different, mouse farms are pretty high tech places.

Getting furry little experimental animals is much more than just putting Mr. and Mrs. Brown (mouse) together. That's way too old fashioned and the experimental mouses genetic makeup can't be left to "natural" selection in most cases.

The mouse manufacturers like The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, who ships more than 2 million a year and Charles River Laboratories of Wilmington, Mass., who makes about $500 million annually selling and caring for lab animals, most of them mice. These "farmers" have an extremely challenging enterprise that requires cutting-edge technology and a mastery of difficult logistics.

Are we men or are we mice... well, it's kinda hard to tell. The mouse gained new significance not long after the completion of the human genome project in 2001 and the DNA sequence of mice the following year. Would you believe when they put the two genetic codes side-by-side and found the genes of mice and humans are virtually identical.

I have to say the little guy to the right here does have a resemblance to my cousin Elmer. Beady eyes, big nose, needs a shave and the cutest little ears.

Over decades, researchers created inbred lines of lab mice by repeatedly mating siblings to one another until every member of the strain was virtually the same genetically. That standardization made it possible for a researcher in Japan to replicate the experiment of a colleague in California without having to worry about genetic variation affecting the result.

It also gave each strain a distinct character that made it preferable for certain experiments. One strain would be prone to say diabetes and another to obesity. Name your disease and there is probably a mouse strain to match.

In the "olden days" strains of lab mice were created either by selective breeding or by chance. If a sharp-eyed lab technician or graduate student spotted an unusual animal that turned out to have a novel mutation, a new line would be produced in order to study that particular gene.

Now the the mouse farmers create their own mutations, inserting or deleting genes at will. These mouse farmers, located around the world, can do amazing things and even some very weird things. The award for sheer weirdness goes to Xenogen, an Alameda, Calif. outfit, that can hitch the gene of interest to one that codes for the protein that makes fireflies glow. The result: Whenever and wherever the gene being studied switches on inside the mouse, it glows.

Depending on the specific genetic manipulation, the cost to create a custom mouse is usually in the tens of thousands of dollars. Once the line has been established, individual animals can run into the hundreds of dollars.

Researchers generally think the cost is well worth what you get in return, the ability to see how a disease affects a mammal or how a drug is going to work. While the individual mouse will pay the ultimate price hopefully mankind will reap the benefits of their contribution.

So the next time you got to set the mouse trap........

Resveratrol ~ Diabetes & Endurance Miracle

I first blogged about resveratrol a couple of weeks ago, click here to see the original post. I thought it was a really cool discovery, if true, but it only applied to the mouse world. See'n as how people weigh hundreds of times more than mouses (maybe thousands of times!) I reasoned that there was hundreds of times more work required to make this miracle drug applicable to humans. While that may be unreasonable reasoning, it would appear from reading news articles that there is the proverbial carrot hanging out in front of us.

I read, "While studies have so far been limited to mice, a French team said they had found a genetic link to energy expenditure in humans that looks like it might be similarly affected by resveratrol."

And not only that!!! Mice, our furry little experimental animals, that are put on a mouse sized tread mill could run a mile before collapsing (God, I hate stress tests) but give the little poop machine a diet including ample quantities of resveratrol and the mice could double their distance. AND in addition to the endurance building we can now prevent type 2 diabetes if you are taking (drinking?) resveratrol. AND apparently the diabetes treatment is successful because resveratrol causes cells to burn more energy, this results in weight loss. AND scientists now believe resveratrol can be affective in treating Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. AND resveratrol ingesting mice live much longer than those mouses that collapsed after a mere mile on the tread mill. Could it be that it was red wine pouring from The Fountin of Youth?

Truly amazing except for this little caveat: "Native resveratrol from red wine or nutraceuticals cannot reach therapeutic levels in man. You would need to drink hundreds of glasses of red wine or take hundreds of nutraceutical pills in a day to get a therapeutic dose." I don't see the problem here.

The news articles said, "Scientists suspect resveratrol from red wine may help explain why French people have fewer heart attacks despite their high-fat diets." One must then ask, if the red wine can benefit the French on the one hand then on the other hand can't red wine benefit people everywhere? Maybe the French never sober up and are drowning in wine or the scientists are trying to cover their poop shoot.

It seems to me that it may be worth while to give up on bourbon and beer, switch to red wine, grapes and peanuts, all sources of resveratrol. I have not ever read where eating or drinking large quantities of anything was good for you.... this may be the exception.

I have a picture in my mind, that won't go away, of a mouse stuck to the tread of a tread mill, going round and round. Flap, flap, flap goes his little body as the researcher is hanging at the coffee machine making goo goo eyes at the new lab assistant. Flap, flap, flap, flap. This little furry experimental creature needs more than resveratrol. Such is life in the mouses world.

See you (flap, flap, flap) in the (flap, flap, flap) funny papers (flap, flap, flap.....).

Mice Cured of Lung Cancer

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to present Jimmy Swaggart. Mr. Swaggart is going to put hands on these little furry experimental creatures that have been infected with lung cancer and by being a conduit of the good Lord will cure them of this wretched disease.

Damn, 'ol Jimmy Boy couldn't have written it any better his own self.

I am proud to report that mouses no longer have to fear the agonizing death spiral caused by lung cancer. An embryonic stem cell-based vaccine injected into a mouse with lung cancer not only cures the creatures' lung cancer but vaccinates him from developing lung cancer in the future.

This was reported today by Professor John Eaton who is the Deputy Director of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville, while speaking at a cancer treatment symposium in Prague. He explained that the research into the vaccines produced an 80-100 per cent success rate in the prevention of tumour growth in the mice who had been previously infected with lung cancer. Eaton continued, "Our results raise the exciting possibility of developing a prophylactic vaccine capable of preventing the appearance of various types of cancers in humans, especially those with hereditary, chronological or environmental predispositions to neoplastic disease."

Once again we know not where these stem-cells came from but I can tell you this. If it were me with lung cancer I wouldn't give a fly'n frizby where the stem-cell originated as long as they expunged the BIG "C" from my body. Of course we don't have this vaccine for humans... only for the little furry experimental animals.

But someday......

Mouses Cured of Diabetes... It's Another Miracle

It's another Mouse Medical Miracle!

Researchers at Tulane University (guess Katrina missed TU), used HUMAN bone marrow and successfully got the little mouse pancreas's of our diabetic furry experimental animals producing insulin.

Researchers injected a group of mice with human stem cells and after about three weeks the pancreas's in the mouses were found to be producing higher levels of mouse insulin . The control group of mouses who did not get the stem cell treatment continued to suffer the deadly affects of diabetes i.e. high blood sugar levels which result in blindness, heart disease, organ failure, neureopathy, gangrene, hypertension, baldness, alcoholism, bunions and the dreaded E.D.

This is the 5th announcement in a week having to do with miracles in the mouse medical arena. As is par for the course, I have not read about even 1 miracle or even minor miracle for the humans. At least humans were contributing to the diabetic mouse miracle by contributing stem cells.

I do wonder why the researchers had to use human stem cells versus using mouse stem cells. Of course if President Bush hears about this the first question he will as is WHERE did they get these stem cells. And if the answer isn't the "right" one then TU may have to go underground to continue their research.

The study was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

3 Blind Mice... have to trash this rhyme

I may have to start a blog just on mice or mouses or furry experimental animals other than rats. I guess it's good news for the mice that are blind but it shoots the hell out of the nursery rhyme about the 3 blind mice.

Now I read that scientists have "stunning" results in restoring the sight to blind mice. I kid you not I read it here.

So I have to go back to my original premise of If only I were a mouse.

Let's us review what I've read, just recently, about mouses and their spouses:

• If they drink red wine they will live a lot longer than normal mouses even if they are fat and lazy.
• If they stay cool they will live longer.
• Jet-lag will shorten their life.
• British scientists can restore the sight to blind mice.

I'm start'n to lean back in the direction that it isn't so bad being a mouse. Of course in the human world if you are fat and lazy, drink a lot of red wine, run your air conditioner year round to stay cool (unless just wearing sunglasses will do the trick), don't ever fly so you avoid jet-lag and are blind but go to Britain and have your sight restored you are probably in jail wait'n on a sex change operation at the governments expense.

Of course these mice still are living in little rectangular Tupperware houses with sawdust floors and have to share their water bottle with all the other inmates confined to their Tupperware cell.

Naw... I'll continue to take my chances in the human world.... forget the wine, wish I could lose the fat and get in shape, still rarely fly, try to stay cool and visit my eye doctor regularly and DON'T live in the Tupperware cell.... even if the sawdust is fresh.

See you in the funny papers.....

UPDATE: If only I were a mouse!

Original post of If only I were a mouse.

Hold on to your tutu ladies and gentlemen. I just read where researchers think "JET LAG" is detrimental to the health of a mouse!!!

"HOLY CRAP!" he exclaimed, "what will my mouse do with the plane tickets he has already purchased?"

I'm going to recommend to my mouse friends that when they travel they need to take it slow and easy.

These traveling mouses and their spouses should take the train across the land. Book passage on a ship for crossing water and never ever take a plane.

Of course this fits well with the mouse's staying cool and drinking red wine to live longer... they just have to stay off planes, sip their wine, put on their shades and be cool.

What will be the next thing to rear it's ugly head in our attempt to get a mouse to live forever?

I saw it here: Jet Lagged Mice

See you in the funny papers.....

If Only I were a Mouse

I would probably be living to be about 150 or so years before I even started to get gray hair.... if I were a mouse.

I see there is now a thing identified as resveratrol that is helping our little fuzzy experimental animals to live longer. Best of all, this fountain of youth juice is found in red wine..... need I say more. Probably not but.....

The good news gets even better when it was also announced that if the mouse stays cool they will also live longer.So breakout the mouse sunglasses, get a thimble of wine and just chill. No problem mon.

Heck, if it works for a mouse surely it will work for this old phart. Isn't that what people get out of these announcements. If it works on a mouse it will work on me!

On the other hand it would also seem to me that the lucky mouse's, as in mice, are the ones who get to do the maze tests or the breeding test (do you think a mouse testing Viagra is hot and thus having a shorter life?).

Based on what I have seen on the tube most of the mice live in rectangular tupperware with a floor of sawdust. I imagine one mouse says to the other, "hey honey, lets go for a walk." Yep, takes about 3 seconds. That sounds stimulating... wish I could live like that.Maybe being a long living mouse isn't all that it's made out to be.

You know, getting old isn't easy or painless.