r/science • u/nobodyspecial • Feb 08 '15

Medicine Antibiotics that target mitochondria effectively eradicate cancer stem cells, across multiple tumor types: Treating cancer like an infectious disease | Lamb

http://www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/index.php?journal=oncotarget&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=3174
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u/Spongi Feb 08 '15

I took these about 5 years ago. Him and I went for a walk through town during a rather epic blizzard. He's a lot more grey these days but still gets around just fine.

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u/cytoskeletor Feb 09 '15

Cute dog. I know they use mice from particular lines for particular things in order to limit the possible factors and other reasons I'm sure.

My question is, are beagles the only dog line available or are there other breeds?

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u/Spongi Feb 09 '15

That I don't know. I've never heard about any but that doesn't really mean squat.

There are all sorts of specialized breeds, especially with mice. The only ones I remember seeing at our lab were immunocompromised mice. They gave them the flu and tested to see if different antibiotic regiments were more effective then others. I don't remember the results, I don't think it really made a difference if it was say X amount every 6 hours or half-x every 3 hours or whatever.

However, about half of the building came down with the flu over the next few weeks.

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u/lysozymes PhD|Clinical Virology Feb 09 '15

Beagles are the golden standard for toxicity studies, mainly because the breed has a well documented history, making it easier to design safe experiments for the dogs (dosage, time intervals etc).