Mice are the foundation for numerous advances in medicine, including therapies for cancer, heart disease, hypertension, metabolic and hormonal disorders, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, glaucoma, skin pigmentation diseases, blindness, deafness, neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, birth defects, and psychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression and schizophrenia.

Fruit flies have helped to develop drugs designed to treat a range of diseases from skin infections and genetic disorders to pneumonia, and meningitis. Some of the recent research with fruit flies has focused on understanding Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, spastic paraplegia, cancer, obesity and insomnia.

Rabbits are the reason our dogs and cats can live with us in our houses.  Louis Pasteur worked with rabbits to develop the first rabies vaccine which made it safe to bring pets into our homes.  Rabbits have a similar anatomy and physiology to humans, especially their cardiovascular system, and…

Hamsters are important in many research areas, including cancer, reproduction, virology, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Hamsters and humans metabolize fats and sugars in similar ways, leading to susceptibility to atherosclerosis and diabetes. When fed high fat diets, hamsters’ LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) will elevate, as in humans, and lead…

Dogs, although one of the least common animals needed for research, are among the most important.  Many cancers in dogs are identical, or almost identical, to human cancers. The cancer in dogs often develops faster, making them an ideal model to see if a certain therapy is effective. Many breeds…