When people hear that scientists are mutating a small and cuddly mouse, images of giant white-balled furry creatures climbing the Empire State Building spring to mind.
But, no.
Researchers can make mutant mice from minor changes in stem cells, according to Holly Falk-Krzesinski, assistant director of Northwestern’s interdepartmental biological sciences program. Scientists at both NU’s Evanston and Chicago campuses work with the fuzzy rodents.
“There are those researchers that use mouse embryonic stem cells to generate mice with specific genetic defects, which in turn gives rise to mutant mice that are used in basic research study,” she said in an e-mail. “The other type of research is actually on stem cells and how they give rise to other cell types.”
Why choose mice?
“Mice are convenient because they are relatively cheap,” Michael Kennedy, assistant chairman of NU’s neurobiology and physiology department, said. “They are easy to mutate.”
With the mouse genome nearly mapped out, John Kessler, chairman of the Feinberg Medical School’s neurology department, focuses on understanding neural stem cells and how they can be applied to clinical problems, primarily using mice as guinea pigs.
“I’ve been working on it for a decade,” Kessler said. “Ultimately, the hope would be to regenerate the nervous system irrespective to the cause of the damage such as spinal cord, stroke, Parkinson’s Disease … and anything that can harm the nervous system.”
“Understand that currently technology has not progressed to the point where we can truly impact human diseases yet, and that is precisely what we’re working on,” he said.
Many researchers say the best human stem cells come from human embryos. A controversy has erupted over human embryonic stem cell research because many people are troubled that scientists are willing to destroy an embryo just to extract stem cells from it.
Rex Chisholm, the director of NU’s Center for Genetic Medicine in Chicago, said usage of mouse stem cells have not prompted such a public backlash.
“There’s always concern on the part of some people about the use of animals in research,” Chisholm said. “I don’t think there were any special concern about using embryonic stem cells in mice.
“The whole idea behind using the animal model is that its helpful to work out the approaches one uses before they apply them to humans.”
