Mice age 30 times more rapidly than human beings. This short life span makes them ideal for studies on aging, for example. The many strains of inbred mice with natural genetic deficiencies have resulted in a wide range of genetic models of human diseases. Researchers can obtain a strain of mouse with a disease affecting almost any organ system or tissue to mimic the human disease they would like to study.
Mice reproduce readily and plentifully.
Because of this, researchers can use them to study genetics, as well as the abnormalities of fetal development associated with poor genetic background, or the ways in which addictive drugs taken by pregnant females affect offspring. Contributions of mice to the knowledge of basic genetics and immunology have resulted in the development of organ transplantation. Vaccines for many diseases, including whooping cough and yellow fever , were developed and tested in mice. Today, surgical techniques have improved so much that even heart transplantation is being studied in the mouse. The hairless mouse is uniquely valuable to cancer research.