An opinion article recently published on the on line journal undark.org by Lindsay Gray (a lab manager at the University of California San Francisco) discusses how the use of computer modeling and simulation can make drug development and biomedical research safer, more efficient, and more effective.
"...Animal models, especially mice, have given scientists valuable insights into the mechanisms behind countless human diseases. They have been instrumental to the discovery of drug targets, metabolic pathways, and gene function. They’ve helped to lay bare the basic biochemistry of metabolism, hunger, cognition, and aging. Because mice are, to a certain extent, miniature facsimiles of human anatomy and genetics, science has an array of tools at its disposal to manipulate and visualize their bodily processes in real time, in highly controlled settings..."
Read the full article here
