Why use animals to test on? Why mice specifically?
It is very difficult to observe how the mutation of a certain gene results in disease, what happens to the gene when this mutation has occurred, and how the gene works normally. To make this process easier, scientists often use animals or cell cultures. They can see how the mutated gene works in these models and compare their results to human models. Animal models are often a better than cell culture models because they contain cells with proteins that are needed for a certain mutation to cause disease. Mice make good models because they can be used to point out genes that participate in vision. It is estimated that 90 percent of human disease-causing genes perform the same function as a mouse. And because mice have such short life spans, it will take less time to study the mutations in the genes than it would in humans where the mutations often take decades to form disease.
