Now experts from the US government and Britain's Ministry of Defence are interested in harnessing the potential of the mice and their smelling abilities in the war against terror.
'There are all kinds of applications for a highly-developed sense of smell, such as the detection of explosives or drugs,' said Dr Len Kaczmarek, a professor of pharmacology and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale's School of Medicine.
'It's a great idea. You wouldn't want to let a mouse loose on an aeroplane to go sniffing for anything but in the right circumstances and with the right controls it could be extremely useful.'Dr Kaczmarek discovered that the mice had become super-sniffers after immunobiologist Dr Richard Flavell, a fellow Briton, removed a gene known as Kv1.3 from them to investigate the effect on their hearing.
The mutation instead caused significant changes to the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that gets information from odour receptors in the nose. In simple terms, the mutant mice ended up with twice as many odour-processing 'units' than normal.
'It was a big surprise to us,' said Dr Kaczmarek. 'We still haven't figured out what it's doing with their hearing but we know they can find a peanut butter-covered cookie in half the time it takes a normal mouse.'
Dr Fadool said the animals could easily be trained as 'sniffer mice', undertaking the kind of work done by dogs, but with the advantage that the mice are quicker to breed, cheaper to train and can work in smaller spaces.
'They are already working with rats in harnesses detecting land mines in Mozambique. There's no reason why mice can't be put to use,' she said.
Meanwhile, her work is being monitored by the MoD, which has invited her to a conference in Britain in November, and she is working with US government researchers from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to see how the sniffing skills can help detect different chemicals and explosives used in car bombs.
Nice to see really clever people can make a mistake and still make something useful
