Building A Better Mouse

Mice have been used in genetic research for decades. This is mostly due to the face that they have a  95% genetic similarity to humans. Though this is extraordinarily close, the 5% gap tends to produce many hurdles when trying to use mice to determine patterns in the human genome. This comparison is done by the technique called gene mapping which is an extremely tedious and difficult process, but can have some very powerful results if done correctly. Scientists at Tei Aviv University are trying to close this 5% gap by making mice more genetically diverse, allowing for them to became genetically even more similar to humans. This is going to be done through an international process called "Collaborative Cross". The goal is to create 1,000 different strains of mice with a fixed genotype. THe goal here is to take the 10-15 years it takes to accurately identify and work with a gene and shrink it to only 2-3 years which is an outstanding improvement if it can be accomplished. Hopefully, scientists will be able to accomplish working with genes up to 5 times faster than they are right now. This work has been published in Nature, Nature Genetics, and Genome Research, and receives most of its funding from the group "The Wellcome Trust" based in the United Kingdom. The goal is to use these mice to effectively research conditions such as cancers, diabetes, obesity, along with other conditions and mutations. Professor Iraqi, the leading man in this experiment, states that the mice will be available all over the world and available to order by researchers.