animals & thal

Always we hear the phrase '' animal trails'' either in gene therapy, Hb inducers drugs, chelators, so do animals (usually scientists use mice or monkeys) get thalassemia and if not how can scientist infect them with a genetic disorder in order to take them as a measure. Just curious


manal

Hi Manal,

I did medical research many years ago and in our lab we used transgenic animals - these animals were 'created' to have the disease in question.  The gene of interest is extracted and injected into fertilized eggs of particular animals, these eggs are then planted into the uterus of a female animal.  The female will then give birth to animals that express the gene of interest.  This allows scientists to study the effects of various therapies on the animals who are born with certain diseases such as thalassemia or sickle cell anemia.  Usually, transgenic mice are used in studies. 

Sharmin

Thanks Sharmin , that is really interesting

manal

A tip:
Search for pyruvate kinase deficiency and tell me what you find ;)  It sometimes very annoying. You can read about those lab animals in scientic articles. I am thankful we can use animals for this. It sometimes difficult too. So far as I know I do only take meds what is test on animals. I dont want to hurt them more. Last year there was a huge article in a dutch paper about mices with scd and a breakthrough.