The purpose of inbred strains is to isolate the effects of the drug and the environment from the genetic effects. Drugs are routinely tested on multiple such strains.
There is a huge variety of mouse strains in use and under development. Basically anything you would see in a "fancy mouse" you can have as a strain.
Pets, like cats and dogs, owned by private owners, are used for studies all the time. And not just for veterinary purposes. Dogs have a wide variety of tumors, and studies on these can be used to inform research for Human oncology.
Beagles, kept in laboratory populations, are routinely used to study the cardiological safety of drugs. Such studies are rarely fatal, and dogs often have several of them during their time in the lab. They live in "colonies" of about 10 dogs each, and they look and behave just like very happy pets, even if a lot less trained. In the cases of the colonies I have been in contact with, they live in the lab for about 6 years, then they are spayed/neutered, get a complete dental and are adopted by private owners, often vets and vet students whom they already know.
The problem is in most cases a new drug is not tested on multiple strains. Often we get the result for the CL57/black mouse and nothing more. The end results is often meaningless since it is strain specific.
Yes I know pets are used in studies, but we use pets to only a fraction of their potential. We have 10s of millions of pets and we use a few thousand at most every year. I am lamenting the waste.
There is a huge variety of mouse strains in use and under development. Basically anything you would see in a "fancy mouse" you can have as a strain.
Pets, like cats and dogs, owned by private owners, are used for studies all the time. And not just for veterinary purposes. Dogs have a wide variety of tumors, and studies on these can be used to inform research for Human oncology.
Beagles, kept in laboratory populations, are routinely used to study the cardiological safety of drugs. Such studies are rarely fatal, and dogs often have several of them during their time in the lab. They live in "colonies" of about 10 dogs each, and they look and behave just like very happy pets, even if a lot less trained. In the cases of the colonies I have been in contact with, they live in the lab for about 6 years, then they are spayed/neutered, get a complete dental and are adopted by private owners, often vets and vet students whom they already know.