Too Many Mice are Sacrificed for Seriously Flawed Studies (Vox)Excerpt from Vox: In a new study published Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers found that breast cancer tumor cells from the same cell bank responded differently to the same chemical treatments. The cells were supposed to be clones — they had been vetted for quality before the experiment, and they came from one of the world’s best cell banks. They should have had the exact same responses to the chemicals. Yet "there were dramatic [genetic] differences from one vial of these cells to another," said study leader Thomas Hartung, a professor in environmental health sciences and molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins. He and his co-authors decided to investigate why, and discovered that the cells had undergone genetic drift. Full Article (Vox) |