Creative Bios

  Biliary atresia   (BA)   is  a congenital condition  that  a blockage   happ ens  in the tubes  responsible for  carry ing  bile from the liver to the gallbladder. It results from abnormal development of the bile ducts inside or outside the liver  and results in progressive fibrous obliteration with different degrees of inflammation in the hepatobiliary system. According to incomplete statistics, about 1 out of 10,000–20,000 live births would be identified with b iliary atresia , but actually, the situation could be worse given the late diagnoses. Up to now, the causes for this condition remain unclear and seem to be heterogeneous, but it undoubtedly would lead to an inestimable mental and financial burden for patients and their families, as well as the healthcare system.   To better understand and identify the etiology of b iliary atresia , researchers are dedicated to finding the best animal model organism  to ver...

  Verification  of vaccine efficacy is necessary as it shows how well a candidate vaccine works in humans. However, testing vaccine efficacy in humans is costly, time-consuming, and complex because it may involve a large number of participants who might have geographic or demographic biases and it requires following cohorts of subjects for years to monitor protective efficacy. Moreover, vaccine efficacy studies in humans could get trouble in ethical issues when it comes to certain pathogens like HIV. Contrarily, model organisms, which are easy to maintain and breed in a laboratory setting with a short generation time, permit faster evaluation of promising vaccine candidates at a lower cost and risk compared with humans.   Some model organisms have similar genes or similar-sized genomes to humans, which means they can mimic the pathophysiology of human disease after being infected by a target pathogen and bear a resemblance to human immune responses. Theoretically, the imm...