Researchers announce first mouse model for typhoid fever
research |Date: August 16, 2010|| Bar Harbor, Maine --
Researchers including Jackson Laboratory Professor Leonard
Shultz have announced the first mouse model for typhoid fever.
The model will allow researchers to study typhoid fever and to
develop new treatments and vaccines to battle this serious
threat to health in the developing world. Each year the life-
threatening illness strikes more than 21 million people in
Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most patients have limited
access to antibiotics, and currently available vaccines for
typhoid prevention offer only limited (60-80 percent)
effectiveness. Salmonella typhi, the bacterium that causes the
disease, lives only in humans (in the bloodstream and intestinal
tract). The lack of animal models for typhoid fever has been a
significant barrier to developing new treatments and vaccines.
The NSG mouse known by the technical name (NOD)-scid IL2rg null,
which was developed by Jackson's Shultz, has a suppresse