Scientists are getting better at engineering monkeys to have human health problems, like autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease
Anthony Chan spent two years creating the first five monkeys in the world to be genetically engineered with human mutations — in this case, for Huntington’s disease. But three of the five monkeys, reported in 2008, developed severe symptoms of Huntington’s much more quickly than anticipated, and had to be killed within a month of birth. Viruses used to introduce the relevant gene had inserted extra copies randomly, intensifying the symptoms — and highlighting the method’s limitations in creating animal disease models.
Chan, a geneticist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and other scientists around the world are now eyeing precision genome-editing techniques that solve such problems by using enzymes and RNA instead of viruses. Many have high hopes that transgenic monkeys will mimic human genetic conditions more faithfully than mice — and thus permit better drug-development tests. Many also say that the primates will accelerate basic research in neuroscience, permitting researchers to map and test complex neural circuits underlying behaviors that do not exist in simpler organisms. “We weren’t even able to think about this before,” says Chan.
Read More: http://www.newssum.com/precision-gene-editing-paves-way-for-transgenic-monkeys-1083
