# Animal results can miss dangerous differences in human biology

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/animal-results-can-miss-dangerous-differences-in-human/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Morgan McSweeney](https://realalpha.app/people/morgan-mcsweeney/) · Morgan McSweeney is a pharmaceutical scientist and medfluencer. · Translates medical evidence for the public and advises organizations, including the WHO and White House science office.
- Host: [Neil deGrasse Tyson](https://realalpha.app/people/neil-degrasse-tyson/)
- Host: [Chuck Nice](https://realalpha.app/people/chuck-nice/) · Comic
- Host: Gary O'Reilly · Comic
- Show: StarTalk
- Episode: [The Science of Looksmaxxing, with Doc Noc](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/), Oct 24, 2026
- Moment: 23:37 to 27:15 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/animal-results-can-miss-dangerous-differences-in-human/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1417

## Quote

> “this type of T cell doesn't have the **exact same marker** that is present in human T cells.”
> — [Morgan McSweeney](https://realalpha.app/people/morgan-mcsweeney/) at [25:58](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1558) · StarTalk

## Takeaways

1. The primate model lacked a marker present on human T cells.
2. Five or possibly all six first recipients developed severe inflammation within minutes.
3. Sentinel dosing tests one person or a pair before expanding a trial.

## About this segment

A first-in-human antibody trial caused severe inflammation in most of its first six recipients. Researchers traced the mismatch to a T-cell marker absent in the primate model, prompting more cautious sentinel dosing.

From “The Science of Looksmaxxing, with Doc Noc”, Oct 24, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[23:49](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1429) of peptides. So the GLP-1s went through the route you would want them to go through, big clinical studies, thousands of people. You get a clear idea of benefits and risks. The peptides I think we're talking about now when people talk about stacking with BPC-157 or TB-500, there's very, very little, in some cases zero, human clinical data on either the benefits or the risks of these peptides. Those two peptides you mentioned, they're the Wolverine stack. The Wolverine stack. And so it's touted for, with very little evidence, some animal evidence but not much human evidence and anyone who's been in biology for a long time can tell you how many times we've cured cancer in mice and how many times we've solved every disease in animal models of disease that have failed to translate to humans i think the stat is among

[24:33](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1473) drugs that start clinical studies actual clinical studies on humans on humans only about 10 percent of them make it all the way through make it to market it's even lower in cancer i think it's about 5%. And 100% of those were tempted by their results from animal research. Okay. Right. So you're starting out. They didn't just pull it out of their ass and say, let's give it to people. They had some evidence that it might work.

[24:56](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1496) Right. Enough to convince. But how do you explain that if mice are actually quite close to us genetically, what is the fundamental divide between us then? Yeah. I mean, there's phenomenal differences, even coming from non-human primates, maybe as a more striking. Sure, sure. You'd think it's almost identical. Go there, go there, yeah. There was a really tragic clinical study started for an antibody years back at this point called TGN-1412, which was supposed to be a powerful treatment for autoimmune disease.

[25:23](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1523) It was supposed to turn up the types of immune cells in your body that help damper down the immune response. Just before we had a cure for AIDS, was that? I don't know the exact timeline. I think it was from the 2000s. But the idea was, we're going to turn up these helpful immune cells that work against autoimmune disease. And they tested it in non-human primates. And then they said, okay, based on that non-human primate dose, everything looked fine.

[25:46](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1546) We're going to scale it down 100-fold, 200-fold, I forget what it was, and try it in humans. They put it into the first six humans. I think it was either all of them or five out of the six first people who were tested within minutes started going into this severe inflammatory response. Their organs started shutting down. One of them lost, I think, a few fingers or something. And afterwards, what they found out was, oh, actually, in this non-human primate model, this type of T cell doesn't have the exact same marker that is present in human T cells.

[26:17](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1577) And it turned up the wrong type of inflammatory T cells in humans that wasn't visible even in non-human primates, let alone rats or mice. So it caused like a cytokine response instead. It did. It causes huge inflammatory response acutely. That's really unfortunate. So unexpected stuff happens all the time. See, that's why we should just test everything on humans to begin with. what you're saying is we should expect unexpected things right which is why i mean that's why clinical trials are structured the way they do and actually in response to that now instead of dosing all six people at the same time and six is already a small number to be starting with right now they do called sentinel dosing where it's like you start with one person and you wait and see what happens to that one or pair of people and then you kind of scale it up and you might

[27:00](https://realalpha.app/v/ESvls8ZUg58/?t=1620) handpick your person who is in a really dire straight in the case of cancer absolutely yeah