Model student
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How to make a new research modelAt The Jackson Laboratory, Dr. Cox and many of his colleagues routinely develop new mouse models for a wide variety of genetic diseases. “So I realized that we could certainly make a mouse model for FP, and that this would be a perfect research project for Alex’s internship.” At this time Alex was still in the hospital, recovering from surgery, so Dr. Cox relayed this idea to him through his mother, and received an excited “yes” in return.
The human and mouse genome projects of the early 2000s confirmed that people and mice share the vast majority of their genes, and that virtually every mouse gene has a human counterpart. So, mice get the same genetic diseases as humans, for the same reasons. It’s also possible to introduce a specific genetic alteration into a mouse that mimics a gene mutation responsible for a human disease. In the case of FP, the genetic mutation was known to be located in a gene called SDHB, so the new mouse model would target the analogous mouse gene.
“Mouse models can be used for a number of different purposes,” Dr. Cox explains. “They help us understand the basic biology that underlies a particular disease—the inheritance patterns, how they’re transmitted from one generation to the next. They also help us understand the basic molecular mechanisms of what actually causes the disease, and where we might be able to intervene pharmaceutically.”
