7 October 2010

ANU's mouse bank

| johnboy
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The Sydney Morning Herald is having a look at the mouse sperm collections of the Australian National University:

Mice are ideally suited as animal models to study human illnesses, says Dr Stuart Read, the curator of the Australian Phenome Bank, which is based at the Australian National University. They reproduce quickly and have genes similar to ours. ”And they are susceptible to most of the same diseases as humans,” he says.

Unlike financial banks, the mouse bank offers it services for free to Australian medical researchers. The federally funded facility collects and archives sperm and embryos from mouse strains that scientists have developed or imported.

It also ”reanimates” the sperm, injecting them into eggs to produce new mice for those who want to study that particular strain.

Someone’s got to do it!

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That explains the squeak squeak squeak squeak coming from the next room.

Hahah! Just lay back and think of Minnie little fella!

No wonder Mickey’s got a smile on his face…..

neanderthalsis said :

I just feel sorry for the poor mug (probably a PHD student on a scholarship) who has the job of jerking off the mice.

Fluffer?

neanderthalsis12:24 pm 07 Oct 10

I just feel sorry for the poor mug (probably a PHD student on a scholarship) who has the job of jerking off the mice.

There was a recent article where the head of the American National Institute of Health talked about how they came under fire for funding a similar project to freeze rat semen. “They just thought it sounded weird and bizarre and like a waste of money”.

So it’s great to see that the SMH didn’t play this as a fluff piece (those wacky scientists, you never know what they’ll come up with next) or, worse, as “Frozen Mouse Sperm: Your Tax Dollars at Work?”.

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