2007 Nobel Prize In Medicine

 Genetics has secured Nobel Prize before. Bacterial genetics, Plant genetics, frog genetics, nematode genetics and drosophila genetics have all been awarded Nobel prizes. This time mouse genetics has secured a prize.

What are the advantages of mouse as a model study system?

1. Mouse is a mammal and its physiological systems are similar to man. Also it can multiply every nine weeks and so progenies arising from a single animal can be quickly studied.

2. Mouse genome has been sequenced and there are less than 30,000 genes, 30% of which are identical and of the remaining, 80% are similar to man.  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6915/abs/nature01262.html

3. Human diseases like cancer and diabetes effect mouse and can be studied at cellular levels.

4. Certain genetic disease like cystic fibrosis which occurs only in man can be studied by manipulating mouse genome.

The Nobel Prize for Medicine 2007 has been awarded to Mario Capecchi,

Sir Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies for gene targeting in mice using stem cells.

[A Stem cell is a progenitor cell that has the potential to either multiply into another stem cell or grow into any kind of specialized cell (like skin, liver, heart, brain etc)].

First alterations are made at the DNA level to knock out a particular gene and this DNA is injected into nucleus of mouse embryonic stem cell,

where through recombination, the altered DNA is incorporated into the homologous gene, thus knocking it out or rendering it inactive.

When the stem cell containing this knocked out gene multiplies, the cells are injected into a normal mouse blastocyst (an embryonal cell mass arising from and inside a fertilized egg). Pups born as a result of this will be mosaic containing both knocked out and normal genes.

However when such an adult mosaic mouse is bred with a normal mouse, it will give rise to knocked out and normal mouse strains.

The knocked out mouse can be used to study genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis and also form a foothold towards gene therapy.

More information will be found in http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2007/press.html

Also see http://laviequotidienne.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/the-genetic-research-gold-rush/

Animal research should however be done with caution. It is imperative that a researcher has to be compassionate and sensitive to an animal he/she studies.

In the USA, The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) monitors all animal research. There are guidelines set by USDA and National Academy of Sciences for animals used in scientific research.