For all the bad press rats get you have to give them credit too, after all what would the scientists learn without them. Here are a couple of examples of some of the research being done on rats to benefit mankind's health.These were found on discover.com
Fat Vaccine Works in Rats
Apoorva Mandavilli
In August, immunologist Kim Janda of the Scripps Research Institute grabbed headlines with reports of a vaccine against obesity. The vaccine triggers an immune response that targets ghrelin, a hormone naturally made in the gut and transported to the brain; ghrelin spikes with hunger and is thought to stimulate the storage of body fat.
In the study, rats that received the vaccine ate the same amount of food as the control group, but they gained less weight and had 20 percent less body fat. "I expected them to eat less, but it appears that what we saw was a result of metabolism," Janda says. "Losing weight, losing fat—can't ask for anything more than that!"
Now the reality check: The researchers followed the rats for only one week after the animals received their last booster shots. Long-term results could be very different. Michael Schwartz, professor of medicine at the University of Washington at Seattle, warns that the weight loss could prompt the body to compensate by making more of other weight-related hormones.
Meanwhile, neuroscientist William Colmers of the University of Alberta worries about the wisdom of vaccinating the body against one of its own molecules. "It's an intriguing idea, but it worries me considerably," he says. "I sure as hell wouldn't take it, no matter how fat I was."
Stem Cells Reverse Parkinson's in Rats
Kathleen McGowan
Injecting neurons derived from human embryonic stem cells into rats suffering from Parkinson's-like symptoms allowed the animals to regain movement, according to a study led by neurologist Steven Goldman of the University of Rochester Medical Center. The downside is that the transplanted cells also fostered the growth of benign brain tumors.
Goldman's work builds on previous studies that explored the developmental cues involved in directing an embryonic stem cell to become a functioning neuron. He improved the technique by culturing the stem cells with astrocytes, cells that guide the maturing neurons, that he had taken from the dopamine-producing region of the rat brain. Up to 80 percent of the stem cells cultivated this way then began functioning like dopamine-producing neurons, Goldman reported in November in the journal Nature Medicine. When injected into rats with an artificially induced form of Parkinson's, the cells worked, as demonstrated by the animals' renewed ability to move.
The benign tumors—masses of dividing cells—that formed around each injection site may have been caused by immature precursor cells, neural cells that did not transform into neurons but that retained the ability to divide. Selecting for injection only the neural cells that are destined to become neurons will be the key to success, Goldman says.
