Tag: Genetic Engineering

New Animal Model for Epilepsy

In September biomedical firm Bionomics announced the creation of a new animal model for epilepsy. Researchers at Bionomics have developed a mouse that contains a genetic mutation which causes the animal to experience seizures analogous to epileptic seizures in human beings.

In fact, this is a ‘knock-in’ mouse — the researchers added a mutation to the mice that is believed to be the cause of inherited epilepsy in human beings.

Bionomics Managing Director Deborah Rathjen said in a press release,

The new mouse model contains a genetic mutation representative of human epilepsy and we will now be able to assess more closely the neurological and physiological mechanisms causing epilepsy. We can move to identify fourth generation anti-epileptic drugs that will be more effective and with fewer side effects.

As many as 30 percent of people diagnose with epilepsy don’t respond to existing drugs.

Source:

Bionomics breakthrough world’s first animal model of inherited human epilepsy. Bionomics, Press Release, September 8, 2002.

Bionomics Touts New Mouse Model, Posts Loss. Melissa Trudinger, Australian Biotechnology News, September 9, 2002.

NIH Announces New Species on which Genomic Effort Will Focus

The National Institutes of Health recently announced which species would be given priority in federal genetic sequencing programs. The NIH took proposals from genetic researchers and ultimately selected the chimpanzee, the chicken, the honeybee, the sea urchin, the protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila and a family of fungi.

The federal government currently spends $155 million annually divided between the Whitehead Institute, Baylor College of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine.

Once those centers finish existing genetic sequencing efforts, including putting the finishing touches on the sequencing of the human genome, work will begin on sequencing the genomes of the species given priority by the NIH.

Source:

Species chosen for Genome Project. Rick Weiss, The Washington Post, May 23, 2002.

Researchers Turn Stem Cells Into Lung Cells in Mice

British researchers announced this month that they managed to take stem cells from mice embryos and change them into a type of lung cell — the first time such a transformation has been accomplished.

Researchers at the Imperial College Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Centre took the stem cells from the mice embryos and placed them in a growth factor solution which caused the cells to transform into cells that typically line the lungs. Dr. Anne Bishop, who participated in the research, told the BBC,

This research will make it possible eventually to repair lungs that have been damaged by disease, by implanting fully functioning lung cells to repopulate damaged areas. Also, unlike transplantation from a donor, the cells can be developed in such a way that the body will not reject them.

That sort of procedure is at least a decade off, but this research is an important first step to making such procedures possible.

Source:

‘Growing human lungs’ a step closer. The BBC, May 16, 2002.

Public Effort Decodes Mouse Genome

In February 2001, Celera Genomics announced that it had completed sequencing the mouse genome. This week researchers at British and American universities announced they had finished their sequencing of the mouse genome which they promptly posted on the Internet for anyone to use.

Because mice are so similar to human beings, the freely available mouse genome will have far reaching impacts on research into human diseases. Sanger Institute researcher Tim Hubbard told The BBC,

The mouse is a key model organism for humans. Their genomes are so similar that you can just compare the two directly. If there are mouse genes we know something about, we can now find genes that look the same in humans.

In fact contrary to what was thought before the sequencing of animal genomes, both mice and humans have roughly the same number of genes. Of course mice are also quite different from human beings, but those differences also will give researchers important information. According to Hubbard,

The mouse has a fantastic sense of smell and you can already see that in the genes. It has a lot more genes than humans connected with olfactory receptors.

So, the animal has its specialties and even looking at those differences will help us understand those things which are critical to humans that mice don’t have. But the basic biology, the basic physiology, is very similar to humans, and having this new information is going to consolidate our understanding of what are the key parts for making a vertebrate.

Hubbard told New Scientist that progress in understanding such functions will improve even more once more mammalian species have their genomes sequenced. Hubbard said the rat genome should be sequenced by the end of this year.

Source:

Mouse code laid bare. The BBC, May 6, 2002.

Mouse’s genetic code made public. Andy Coghlan, NewScientist.Com, May 7, 2002.

U.S. Researchers Clone Calf From Cells of Dead Cow

Researchers at the University of Georgia announced this week that they had successfully cloned a calf from the cells of a cow that had been dead for 48 hours before her genetic material was extracted.

This is the first time a cow has been cloned from cells of a dead animals. European researchers last year announced they had cloned a sheep from cells taken from an animal that had been dead 18 to 24 hours.

The researchers claim that this will allow cattle producers to select the best beef stock from their herds to clone (since it is impossible to judge how suitable a given cow is for meat until after it has been killed).

Further down the road, this technique could allow for the cloning of cows from meat that is tested for low susceptibility to diseases such as Mad Cow.

Source:

Scientists Clone Calf from Dead Cow. Erin McClam, Associated Press, April 25, 2002.

U.S. Researchers Clone Rare Pig

Wisconsin-based company Infigen announced recently that it had successfully produced clones of a rare pig. More importantly, it claims to have developed advances in cloning that allow it to produce clones with just one round of embryo implantations rather than the several rounds that have been required up until now.

The pig was the last female in one of four remaining bloodlines of Gloucestershire Old Spots in North America. Robyn Metcalfe, founder of the Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation in Maine, had unsuccessful tried to get the animal to reproduce via natural breeding and artificial insemination.

Infigen offered its services for free to prove its technology. Pigs have been cloned perviously, but typically two or three pigs are implanted with hundreds of embryos in order to achieve a single successful pregnancy.

Infigen has been able to eliminate the need for implanting multiple animals. In February it released results showing that it had produced three successful pregnancies from three implantations in pigs, and in this case managed to produce a successful pregnancy from a single implantation.

As cloning researcher Randall Prather told NewScientist.Com, “Sounds like they got it working pretty well.”

Source:

Rare pig cloned in single cycle. Sylvia Pagan Westphal, NewScientist.Com, April 23, 2002.

Rare pig breed cloned. The BBC, April 24, 2002.