Seeking Cures, Patients Enlist Mice Stand-In

Megan Sykes, a medical researcher, has a mouse with a human immune system — her own. She calls it “Mini-Me.”

There are also mice containing a part of 9-year-old Michael Feeney — a cancerous tumor extracted from his lungs. Researchers have tested various drugs on the mice, hoping to find the treatment that would work best for Michael.

In what could be the ultimate in personalized medicine, animals bearing your disease, or part of your anatomy, can serve as your personal guinea pig, so to speak. Some researchers call them avatars, like the virtual characters in movies and online games.

“The mice allow you the opportunity to test drugs to find out which ones will be efficacious without exposing the patient to toxicity,” said Colin Collins, a professor at the University of British Columbia.

The Feeneys, who live in Ridgewood, N.J., paid $25,500 for the creation of the avatars and the testing of four different drugs or drug combinations.

The results came back in July. A combination of four drugs — gemcitabine, docetaxel,Avastin and Afinitor — was “astonishingly active” in shrinking the tumor in the mice, said Michael’s oncologist, Dr. Leonard H. Wexler of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Wexler said that the combination was not something oncologists would typically choose.