ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors begin in by giving an overview of the range of unicellular and multicellular model organisms and their utility in both scientific and medical research. They look at different ways of modeling disease, explaining how different types of artificial disease model are produced, what they are useful for, and their limitations. The authors focus on in vitro models that depend on growing cells in culture, that is, cellular disease models. Since the 1980s until quite recently, the models that were made in this way were almost always mouse models (unlike modeling disease due to gain-of-function mutations where transgenesis was used and disease models could be made easily in other mammals). Although some models have been produced that replicate aspects of human disease phenotypes not often seen in mouse models, it remains to be seen just how useful nonhuman primates will be as disease models.
