The Muddle of Models: What You Donʼt Know Can Hurt You

Abstract

Prior to clinical trials, animal models remain the primary tools by which the pharmaceutical industry demonstrates the efficacy and safety of candidate therapeutic agents. Despite this reliance, much remains unknown about the models that we use and the factors that affect how they perform. This ignorance can lead to inappropriate assumptions, questionable procedures, and incorrect conclusions from data generated in these models. This perspective provides a narrative of several such instances and provides recommendations as to how we might address our knowledge gap by better characterization of our models, better understanding of our practices, and better control of our studies.

Head-to-Head Comparison of Three Vaccination Strategies Based on DNA and Raw Insect-Derived Recombinant Proteins against Leishmania

“…Moreover, comparative vaccine potential of DNA, protein, and HPB vaccination was evaluated against leishmaniasis in the murine model [68], [69]. Unfortunately, experimental models often lack consistency with clinical settings [70], [71], thus being the major challenge the translation of results from animal bio-models to human disease and the transition from the laboratory to the field [72]. Because of the many analytical tools available, the murine model of VL is an excellent one to dissect the immunological bases but, when research is focused on the disease, it is a very poor model because in most situations they clear infection from both spleen and liver providing very little medical translational information.…”