Polarqueen [creativecommons license] via Wikimedia CommonsA frustrating facet of biomedical research is that therapies that show promising results in animal models sometimes turn out to be ineffective or even dangerous in clinical trials. Failures of this sort represent wastes of time, effort, money and animals, and slow the development of therapies for many human diseases. In an effort to minimize such failures, to increase the odds that mouse studies will produce results that are relevant to human biology and to encourage future research on complex traits and human diseases, an international research consortium has created a new resource called the Mouse Collaborative Cross (MCC). The MCC represents 90% of the genetic diversity of lab mice, recapitulating the heterogeneity of human populations.
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