Sunday, 25 August 2019

Sheepish

Researchers at the Roslin Institute have used gene editing to create sheep having the characteristics of Batten disease (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/24/mutant-sheep-may-help-cure-batten-disease-roslin-institute-genetic-research ). Batten disease is an inherited neurological condition found in children that is currently always ultimately fatal. Although the scientists admit that they may receive some criticism for engineering an animal with a fatal disorder, they claim that the sheep may enable them to develop treatments that can help the human victims. They argue that the sheep's brain is similar in size and complexity to that of a child (whereas the organ of a rat or a mouse is not a good match). Having said that, sheep and humans are rather fundamentally different.
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