mattc286

mattc286 t1_iw4d74f wrote

Reply to comment by amlyo in How do medical researchers obtain lab animals with diseases like specific forms of cancer which arise spontaneously? Do they raise thousands of apes and hope some eventually develop the disease? by userbrn1

A researcher in China tried it. It didn't work and he ruined his career. It's not as simple as articles in the popular media make it out to be. The technologies are not really "there" yet.

5

mattc286 t1_iw4c359 wrote

Reply to comment by turquoise_amethyst in How do medical researchers obtain lab animals with diseases like specific forms of cancer which arise spontaneously? Do they raise thousands of apes and hope some eventually develop the disease? by userbrn1

To further expound, it depends on what "kind" of infertility. If the dams can produce fertile eggs but the embryos can't implant or there's a placental defect, you can harvest the eggs, do IVF, and implant in another dam. If the males make sperm but have vascular issues that make them impotent, you can treat with drugs (like Viagra) or harvest sperm for insemination/IVF. If the mice can't produce gametes, you can use "conditional knockout" like the Cre/LoxP system so the gene is present and working until you're ready to make the test animals, and then either knockout the gene in the whole animal or in the specific tissue you want. I've also seen temporary "rescue" of a knocked out gene with injecting mRNA at the time of fertility defect to overcome the issue long enough to get viable pups.

3