The Mouse In Biomedical Research

Normative Biology, Husbandry, and Models, the third volume in the four volume set, The Mouse in Biomedical Research, encompasses 23 chapters whose contents provide a broad overview on the laboratory mouse’s normative biology, husbandry, and its use as a model in biomedical research. This consists of chapters on behavior, physiology, reproductive physiology, anatomy, endocrinology, hematology, and clinical chemistry. Other chapters cover management, as well as nutrition, gnotobiotics and disease surveillance. There are also individual chapters describing the mouse as a model for the study of aging, eye research, neurodegenerative diseases, convulsive disorders, diabetes, and cardiovascular and skin diseases. Chapters on imaging techniques and the use of the mouse in assays of biological products are also included.

Dedicated to the understanding of the mouse and its role in scientific research. This valuable compendium serves as a standard reference source of information for students embarking on scientific careers, specialists in laboratory animal science, technicians in both animal care and research, and the broad scientific community.

Making Mice blends scientific biography, institutional history, and cultural history to show how genetically standardized mice came to play a central role in contemporary American biomedical research. Karen Rader introduces us to mouse "fanciers" who bred mice for different characteristics, to scientific entrepreneurs like geneticist C. C. Little, and to the emerging structures of modern biomedical research centered around the National Institutes of Health. Throughout Making Mice, Rader explains how the story of mouse research illuminates our understanding of key issues in the history of science such as the role of model organisms in furthering scientific thought. Ultimately, genetically standardized mice became icons of standardization in biomedicine by successfully negotiating the tension between the natural and the man-made in experimental practice. This book will become a landmark work for its understanding of the cultural and institutional origins of modern biomedical research. It will appeal not only to historians of science but also to biologists and medical researchers.

The Mouse in Biomedical Research, Volume I: History, Genetics, and Wild Mice focuses on the utility of the mouse as a laboratory animal in biomedical research. A historical perspective on the development and origins of the laboratory and wild mouse is given. The diversity of inbred strains of mice as well as the methods of developing and the genetic monitoring and testing of these strains are discussed. This volume consists of 14 chapters and begins with an overview of mice of the genus Mus and problems concerning evolution within the genus. The following chapters focus on taxonomy, nomenclature, and breeding systems, together with recombinant inbred and congenic resistant mouse strains. Methods of constructing, testing, and monitoring strains are described. Congenic strains, gene mapping, cytogenetics, and murine experimental studies are also considered, along with the histocompatibility-2 complex and radiation genetics. The final chapter is devoted to the pharmacogenetics of the laboratory mouse, paying particular attention to intoxication and detoxication pathways, genetically determined differences in xenobiotic metabolism, and pharmacogenetic polymorphisms. This book will be a useful reference for investigators using mice in many areas of research.