Center for Humanized Mice

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案寻求建立人源化小鼠发展中心的资金。内布拉斯加大学医学中心（UNMC）的这个新设施将提供环境、基因和异种移植工程小鼠模型，用于转化研究和药物发现，这是UNMC的主流。众所周知，临床研究通常在动物模型上是成功的，但在人类水平上是失败的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks funds to establish a Center for Humanized Mice Development. This new facility at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) will offer environmentally, genetically, and xenotransplantation- engineered mouse models for translational studies and drug discovery, which are the mainstream at UNMC. It is well known that often clinical studies are successful in animal models but fail at the human level. Also the focused use of micro-animals, mice in particular, makes applicability to humans problematic. In turn, we are developing a resource that will generate improved animal models to study human immunity, human-specific infections, vaccines, and human-specific drug interactions. The resources are expected to be efficiently utilized for speeding the translation of new therapeutics to patients. Our goals to improve existing strains of mice are as follows: modify mouse backgrounds for the studies of human-like adaptive immune responses to broader range of pathogens and evaluation of vaccine candidates, create strains of mice that are compatible with the function of human immune system based on human-like glycosilation patterns, modify mouse backgrounds for studies of human-like drug metabolism and drug interaction, study HIV-1-related co-infections, such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, and malaria, and lastly examine HIV-1-associated comorbidities, including end-organ diseases like HIV-1-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND).