Review of "Animal Models in the Light of Evolution" by Niall Shanks, Ph.D., and C. Ray Greek, M.D

Animal Models in the Light of Evolution provides persuasive evidence that animal models should be used with great caution when applying the results to human diseases. Mice and other model animals are both similar and different, in their biology, to humans. It is rather technical and not easy reading.The aim of this book is to question the value of animal experiments for biomedical research, particularly finding chemical treatments for human diseases. Shanks and Greek raise concerns about predictive animal modelling. They particularly question whether animal experiments can prepare the way for trials of medical treatments in humans.Arguments from evolution are used to show the fundamental differences between, for example, rats and humans, as the organisms are too complex for information about one to be applied to the other. The authors discuss this complexity in terms of dynamical systems theory and its mathematical basis and question the possible similarity of such systems in different mammals. Quite small changes can have significant effects. They use such views to raise doubt on just how much genes contribute to an organism's form and function, but their arguments are themselves complex and hard to follow, and there is no persuasive evidence. It is no mystery that mice can differ significantly from humans in their response to drugs.Yet it is common for biologists to recognise similarities in the way animals develop, and how they use similar genes and mechanisms. The basic processes in cells are very similar and the problem is to understand just how proteins determine how a cell functions. There is, for example, good reason to believe that the development of limbs in mice, chick, and human are essentially the same. Yet, in support of the author's case, the effect of thalidomide on human embryos that caused loss of proximal structures does not occur in standard experimental animals. There are differences which are not understood. They rightly point out that identica