Reengineering Life
New Gene-Edited Lab Mice Are Especially Good at Catching Covid-19
Researchers used CRISPR to make ‘humanized’ mice
Reengineering Life is a series from OneZero about the astonishing ways genetic technology is changing humanity and the world around us.
To study Covid-19 in the lab, scientists need animal models — that is, animals that mimic how a disease unfolds in humans. But there’s one big problem: Mice, the mainstay of laboratory research, are resistant to Covid-19 infection.
Scientists have been racing to find the best animal models to understand how the coronavirus infects cells and causes disease, as well as test experimental treatments and vaccines before the can be tried in humans. But since normal mice can’t be infected with the coronavirus, researchers have had to genetically engineer mice that can. Doing so involves adding a human gene to mice.
“Without genetically modifying a mouse, it’s not susceptible to [Covid-19] infection,” says Rob Taft, PhD, senior services program manager at the Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical research institute in Bar Harbor, Maine. The lab is a leading supplier of research mice and has been overwhelmed with requests for them over the past few months.
