Building Better Lab Rats
March 28, 2017 | Terry Sharrer
Rats do more work in medical research than mice, but mice get all the glamour. (50% more scientific publications mention rats over mice). Vitamin pioneer E. V. McCollum, at the University of Wisconsin in 1908, kept the first domesticated rat colony for research. But now, scientists have an increasing number of “humanized” rodents to study. Using gene editing technologies, bioengineers replace endogenous rat or mouse genes with human orthologues. This produces more authentic models of human diseases as well as more accurate drug targets. Precision medicine requires precision models. MORE
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