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Being able to do this is a big step forward , in technological terms , from current methods of testing . “ The way scientists test diseases is often by simulating that disease in an animal , normally in mice ,” says Costa . “ They call these ‘ knock-out mice ’, or ‘ transgenic mice ’, where you can change aspects of the mouse to kind of behave like the human disease .
“ But the bottom line is , mice aren ’ t humans , and especially with the heart , it ’ s just fundamentally different , because the heart in a mouse will beat about seven or eight times a second , whereas a human heart beats about once a second .
“ So it ’ s faster and it ’ s smaller . There are obvious differences which can have very fundamental consequences in terms of how the heart handles calcium , how the heart is susceptible to arrhythmias , how the heart contracts , and what the actual molecular interactions
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