At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a mouse lies on a miniature exam table. The animal is in what is called a "mouse hospital". Although mice have been used in labs to study cancers for years, the results often have been disappointing. The cancers were implanted under their skin, not in the organs where they originated. And drugs that seemed to work in mice often proved useless in humans.
The mouse hospital at Beth Israel and a few similar ones elsewhere are at the forefront of a new way to studying cancers. The mice are given genes that make them develop tumours in the same organs as humans, which means the researchers need scanners to watch the tumors' growth. So the mouse hospitals have tiny ultrasound machines and CT scanners.
Researchers give the mice just a few mutated genes that seem to drive a tumour. At Beth Israel, the prostate cancer in the mice responded to castration and chemical castration. Then, as often happens in men with advanced prostate cancer, the tumours started growing again. By making mice with only one or a few mutations, scientists cut through the genetic noise and could understand the roots of the treatment resistance in mice. Clinical trials have now been launched to to see how the treatment works in humans.
