Making of mouse marks move toward ‘mitochondrial medicine’
February 10, 2004 | Source: KurzweilAI
Scientists have created a new kind of mouse by replacing the genetic material in the mitochondria of one species with that from another in a gene-swapping exercise necessary if doctors are to understand several currently untreatable human diseases.
Mitochondrial medicine — how specific mitochondrial mutations and deficiencies lead to disease — deals with trouble with the cell’s powerhouse, the mitochondrion, which affects many diseases that become more common as people age, from infertility and diabetes to cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.