Mutant Mice Are Bred to Order
Some are fat, others tiny. And one is just having a bad hair day Head Tilt Mouse Ever since Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies created the first knockout mouse in 1989, genetically engineered animals have steadily increased in popularity for all kinds of biology research: simply pick a gene, turn it off in the mouse, and see what happens. Knockout mice are undoubtedly helpful animal models for many human genetic disorders. But there is still plenty of potential for discovery in mice that go through spontaneous mutations: indeed, these natural mutations can have high levels of complexity and diversity, leading to surprising phenotypes that give insight to human genetic disorders. Last week in at Jackson Laboratory's 50th annual Short Course in Medical and Experimental Mammalian Genetics in Bar Harbor,...
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