Source: Bay City News Wire
09/06/06 9:25 PDT
OAKLAND (BCN)
The National Institutes of Health announced today that Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland will lead one of two teams in an international effort to produce thousands of genetically altered mice for a study to understand the role of individual genes in human health.
Pieter de Jong, a scientist at Children's and principal investigator for the so-called Knockout Mouse Project, said the end goal of the five-year project is to understand human diseases and find cures.
De Jong said, "The process is a long one but the rewards are immeasurable."
The NIH said the $50 million initiative it's funding is intended to help researchers explore the functions of 10,000 mouse genes.
De Jong said humans and mice share the same characteristics for most of the 10,000 mouse genes identified for this study.
He said researchers hope to catalogue and confirm the functions of these genes and identify the disease consequences if these genes are defective.
De Jong said since human and mice genes are similar, it is hoped that by inactivating mouse genes, one-by-one, the altered mice will yield clues about the function of human genes and their similar roles in human diseases.
A knockout mouse is a genetically engineered mouse one or more of whose genes have been made inoperable.
Knockout is a route to learning about a gene that has been sequenced but has an unknown or incompletely known function.
Half of the $50 million initiative will go to the team headed by Children's Hospital & Research Institute Oakland, known as CHORI for short, and half will go to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Tarrytown, New York.
Other members of CHORI's team represent the School of Veterinary Science at the University of California, Davis and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England.
In a statement, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni said, "Knockout mice are powerful tools for exploring the function of genes and creating animal models of human disease."
He said, "By enabling more researchers to study these knockouts, this initiative will accelerate our efforts to translate basic research findings into new strategies for improving human health."
Zerhouni said, "It is exciting that the Knockout Mouse Project will be working hand-in-hand with other international efforts. This is scientific teamwork at its best."
De Jong said CHORI has a recombinant DNA library with more than 30 million DNA samples that are used in research programs around the world.
He said the research institute's DNA library has become a major resource for ongoing global research in the genetics of human diseases.
For example, the recombinant DNA library is being used in Oakland to investigate the genetic differences that make certain people susceptible to inherited forms of Lou Gehrig's Disease.
For the Knockout Mouse Project, CHORI will create the genetic material that will be used to knockout or "inactivate" mouse genes.
Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England will insert the altered genes into the embryonic stem cells derived from the mice.
UC-Davis will use the altered embryonic stem cells to create adult mice with one missing gene, the so-called "knockout mice."
De Jong said CHORI officials "are very proud that we won a competitive grant process" and will help lead the project.