NIH聲明將在未來(lái)5年中,，以五千兩百萬(wàn)美金的資金,，贊助一個(gè)基因剔除鼠(Knock out Mouse) 的大型合作計(jì)劃,，預(yù)期透過(guò)這樣大型的合作計(jì)劃，探索完整的基因奧秘,，并且將所獲得的信息公開(kāi),，成為未來(lái)探究人類疾病的公共資源。
NIH主席Elias A. Zerhouni博士表示,，基因剔除鼠是一個(gè)非常具有價(jià)值的工具,，透過(guò)特定基因?yàn)槟繕?biāo)，科學(xué)家可以很快的找到基因的功能,，加速研究基因與疾病的關(guān)系,，這樣的結(jié)果對(duì)于疾病的預(yù)防以及處理，將在短期內(nèi)會(huì)有驚人的發(fā)展,。
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相關(guān)的研究學(xué)者指出,，人體細(xì)胞里約有兩三萬(wàn)個(gè)特定的基因，是穩(wěn)定的在執(zhí)行基因的功能，而透過(guò)基因序列的分析,，這些為數(shù)眾多的基因目標(biāo),，都可以在老鼠身上找到極為相似的標(biāo)的，因此利用老鼠特定基因剔除的這個(gè)工具,，就可以很快的了解特定基因的功能,，掌握基因活動(dòng)的奧秘。
據(jù)了解這個(gè)起始于NIH的大型研究計(jì)劃將會(huì)與加拿大北美特定基因突變鼠計(jì)劃(NorCOMM),、歐洲特定基因突變鼠計(jì)劃 (European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Program,；簡(jiǎn)稱 EUCOMM)合作，透過(guò)這樣大型國(guó)際性合作的方式,，建立起公共基因信息,。
英文原文：
Regeneron chosen by NIH for mouse genome project
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is one of two groups that will be awarded $47.2 million from the National Institutes of Health to take part in a project that uses mice to determine the role genes play in human disease, the NIH announced today.
Regeneron, based in Eastview, will receive a minimum of $18 million over five years to participate in the NIH Knockout Mouse Project.
As part of the collaboration, researchers will use technologies they developed to remove, or knock out, individual genes from mice to discover what trait each gene expresses. Knocking out each gene in the mouse genome will allow researchers to determine the role each gene plays in human physiology and development and enable scientists to develop better models of hereditary human diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders, diabetes and obesity, the NIH said. The goal is to create a mutation for each of the approximately 20,000 protein-coding genes of the mouse genome, and to make the information publicly available.
"Knockout mice are powerful tools for exploring the function of genes and creating animal models of human disease," NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni said in a written statement. "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."
So far, researchers have created knockout mice for about 4,000 genes, the NIH said.
Regeneron was selected for its VelociGene technology. Scientists there have been using the process to discover the roles genes play in a wide range of conditions, from obesity to congenital disorders. They are able to create mice with particular diseases and attributes.
Knockout technologies have existed for more than a decade, but Regeneron has found ways to speed up the process and take it further than other competing technologies, said Dr. George Yancopoulos, president of Regeneron Research Laboratories and the company's chief scientific officer.
"It allows us to do things faster and also manipulate much larger pieces of the genome at one time than people could previously manipulate," he said. "We now have the ability to manipulate genes in the mouse at an unprecedented speed and scale."
By replacing large portions of the mouse's immune genes with their human counterparts, for example, Regeneron scientists have been able to create mice with largely human immune systems.
Regeneron's knockout mice exhibit some unusual traits, said Yancopoulos, a Yorktown Heights resident who led in the development of this technology along with David M. Valenzuela, head of the VelociGene division, who is also from Yorktown Heights.
"I have 'mighty mice' that have big muscles that make them look like Arnold Schwarzenegger," he said, referring to mice with extra copies of a gene that regulates muscle growth. "We have thin mice that adjust their metabolism so that the more you feed them ... they rev up their metabolism and stay lean. ... We have red mice because the additional gene is involved in regulating blood vessel development, so they have too many blood vessels."
An early experiment involved adding a gene from florescent algae, which produced a green mouse that glows in the dark.
Yancopoulos said he has shown pictures of these mice to school children to help them understand how genes work.
Other participants in the NIH project will include a consortium comprised of the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California; the school of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis; and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England. In addition, the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, will receive $2.5 million for the establishment of a data coordination center.
The participants will work closely with other large-scale efforts to produce knockouts that are under way in Canada and Europe.
"The international projects will exchange information and coordinate their efforts in much the same way that teams from many nations collaborated on the International Human Genome Project," said Colin Fletcher, a program director at the National Human Genome Research Institute, in a statement. The institute, part of the NIH, will oversee the administration for much of the Knockout Mouse Project.
"This is the inheritance of the human genome sequencing project — this is the next step," Yancopoulos said.
Regeneron is a small biopharmaceutical company that has several drugs in clinical trials for the potential treatment of cancer, eye disease and inflammatory disease. Yancopoulos said this grant should help the company even further.
"This will help put us at the forefront of the companies that are working to take advantage of the human genome sequence — to first figure out gene function and then to take advantage of this information to develop new drugs that address important, unmet medical needs," he said.
