Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in La Jolla, California, have recently succeeded in achieving the transplantation of a liver from a human to a mouse.

This "humanized" mouse developed is prone to human liver infections and responds to human drug treatments, outlining a innovative way to test novel therapies for treating human liver diseases and other diseases with liver involvement such as malaria.

The animals could then facilitate scientists with a new model to study the diseases such as hepatitis B and C, and also to develop possible treatments and new drugs for them.

In order to avoid studying the effects of diseases directly on humans, researchers have incorporated numerous approaches to modeling a condition, in lab animals, primates or petri dishes.

"This robust model system opens the door to utilize human hepatocytes for purposes that were previously impossible. This chimeric mouse can be used for drug testing and gene therapy purposes, and in the future, may also be used to study liver cancers", quoted senior author Inder Verma, Ph. D., a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and holder of the Irwin and Joan Jacobs Chair in Exemplary Life Science.

The Salk researchers' findings will be published in the Feb. 22, 2010 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.