Aging Research
Aging research may be on the rise, but it does have its own set of unique limitations in terms of how quickly discoveries in the lab turn into human clinical trials. “There’s a lot of grumbling, both in the general public and the scientific community, about how often we cure diseases in mice that never translates when we try those cures in humans,” says researcher Felipe Sierra. Part of the problem, he says, is that the incidence of many human chronic diseases rises with age, yet many researchers prefer using young mice because of the pressures of being published and getting funding. Since most grants are usually only for a four- to five-year period, using younger mice is not only less expensive, but it avoids the delay of waiting for an animal to age.