Researchers engineer new mouse model to study disease
Researchers from the Broad Institute and MIT have created a new mouse model to simplify application of the CRISPR-Cas9 system for genome-editing experiments in living animals. The researchers successfully used the new “Cas9 mouse” model to edit multiple genes in a variety of cell types, and to model lung adenocarcinoma, one of the most lethal human cancers. The mouse has already been made available to the scientific community and is being used by researchers at more than a dozen institutions. A paper describing this new model and its initial applications in oncology appears today in the journal Cell. In recent years, genetic studies have found thousands of links between genes and various diseases. But in order to prove that a specific gene is playing a role in the development of the disease, researchers need a way to perturb it — that is, turn the gene off, turn it on, or otherwise alter it...