Generation of humanised mice
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Generation of humanised mice for the study of human immune responses.
IRAS ID
280890
Contact name
Joanne L Jones
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
10 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
The purpose of the human immune system is to keep us well and to prevent us from developing infections. However, under certain circumstances the immune system can cause problems. For example: (i) in some individuals the immune system attacks their own bodies causing an autoimmune disease (examples of this are multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes) and (ii) the immune system is also potentially problematic in the setting of transplantation, where it might reject the transplanted tissue.
Studying the human immune system is difficult because (i) it is made up of hundreds of different sorts of cells that reside in different tissues so it is difficult to study "in the dish" and (ii) it is very different from the immune system of mice and rats, so one must be very careful in assuming that everything found it rodents is true for humans.
One way of trying to get round this problem is to create "human immune system" mice, by transplanting human immune stem cells into mice that don't have immune systems of their own. This type have work has now been done for many years and is producing very important results.REC name
East of England - Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/EE/0099
Date of REC Opinion
14 Sep 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion