To address the limitations of translating discoveries on non-human animal models to clinical applications, in the past years, a platform known as “humanized mice” has been engineered by reconstituting functional human immune systems in immunodeficient mice. These humanized mouse models constitute a powerful tool to decipher human-specific disease pathogenesis and provide more accurate drug testing outcomes. A better understanding of the most recent progress on the development and applications of humanized mouse models may help researchers, industry and clinicians to design close-to-human preclinical tests and minimize the risks associated with clinical trials.

In the last decade, important progresses have been made on generating functional human immune systems in mice, which allow the study of robust responses of human tropic pathogens such as HIV, HBV, HCV, Dengue Virus, etc. Progress in recapitulating infectious diseases within these mice in turn inspired researchers and drug developers to use these technologies more extensively. Moreover, the outbreak of COVID-19 prompted scientists to apply humanized mouse models to dissect human immune responses to emerging viruses.

This Research Topic aims to gather the most recent progress in the use of humanized mouse technologies for human infectious disease modeling, mechanism studies and drug testing. With this Topic we hope to further encourage the development and use of these technologies and facilitate the progress of human biomedical research.

We welcome Original Research articles and Reviews. The interested areas include but are not limited to:

1. Humanized mice as a model to study human immune responses against viral, bacterial and parasitic infectious agents including, Hepatitis Viruses, Dengue Virus, Plasmodium, HIV, Influenza Virus, SARS-CoV-2 etc.
2. Validation and drug testing for the treatment of infectious diseases using humanized mouse models.
3. Improvements on the development of humanized mice which make the models better recapitulate the human immune system and disease progression/outcome.

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Frontiers in Immunology

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