Question: How hard is it to generate genetics models?

Petrina Lau answered on 12 Nov 2018:

Hi there! it is hard! We have different teams of technicians who specialized in that! So, first, we need to find a gene that is strongly associated with patient carrying certain neurological disorders, then make sure the effect is not random before generating the genetic changes in model animals. After getting that data, we will design a way to genetically engineer the animal so that their offspring will carry that particular mutation. then, we need to check if their offspring carries that particular mutation in all their cells, if not by generations of breeding we can “clean up” the mutation, so all the cells in the animal carries the genetic mutation, consistently. And in the background, we need to keep checking if there is random mutation happening during these generations of breeding to make sure we just get the mutation on the gene we want! 🙂