Choosing the right model animal is a validity-driven decision in which the species, strain, sex, age, genetic background, disease-induction method, outcome measures, and welfare burden must match the scientific question rather than laboratory tradition or convenience. A model should be selected by judging face validity, construct validity, and predictive validity: whether it resembles the human phenotype, whether it reproduces relevant mechanisms, and whether results are likely to predict human biology or treatment response. Animal studies often fail to translate because of species differences, weak disease resemblance, poor experimental design, inadequate reporting, publication bias, and underuse of randomization, blinding, and sample-size justification. Unresolved questions include how to rank competing models objectively, how much human-disease complexity must be reproduced for a given objective, and when non-animal systems such as organoids, ex vivo tissue, or computational models
Selection of Model Animals
Choosing a model animal is a critical decision in basic and applied biology research. Model animals usually include mice, rats, fruit flies, nematodes, zebrafish, etc. Factors such as biological characteristics, genomic similarity, experimental convenience, and cost need to be considered when selecting. Mice are widely used in genetics and immunology research, rats are used in physiology and drug testing, fruit flies and nematodes are widely used in developmental biology and neuroscience, and zebrafish are mainly used in biological imaging and developmental research. Proper selection of model animals can improve experimental reproducibility and result applicability.
Related Experimental Schemes
