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jjanczy62 t1_iw36l2q wrote

Non-human primates are only used at the very end of the therapeutic development process. They're used for to look at a drug's safety profile, get an idea of max tolerated dose, and efficacy (though in not sure how NHP cancer studies work).

Almost all preclinical work is done in mice. They're relatively cheap, breed quickly, and we have tons of reagents for them.

There are a number of models for studying cancer in mice. The easy ones are transplant models where we inject tumor cells (cell lines) into the mouse and go from there. There are induced models as well which will more closely mimic the development of cancer in in patients, but these can take a long time.

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GravityReject t1_iw4jveg wrote

It's not just for drug trials, there are definitely still non-human primate (NHP) experiments going on for the purpose better understanding how infectious diseases work. I work near one of the newer NHP research facilities in the US, so I hear about them fairly often from scientists in my area. Here's one example

Another more recent NHP study from that same lab

That lab specifically does tests on pregnant macaques, intentionally infecting them with a dangerous streptococcus strain to learn about how strep can affect a fetus. And the the mother macaques are often "sacrificed" after giving birth because they're too sick from the infection. Every time I pass by the facility it definitely gives me the heebie jeebies to imagine what's going on in here.

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DentalBoiDMD t1_iw6c9oq wrote

do add, alot of mice are genetically clones and have certain immune dysfunctions that make it easier to induce diseases/conditions in mice.

that's how it was for our lab. im sure there are many ways to do it

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