| Professor Alea Mills of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory delivered a lecture titled, "Where will the future of genetic engineering take us?" earlier this year at the Secret Science Club in Brooklyn. An expert in chromosome engineering, Dr. Mills creates mouse models of human disease to identify the genetic culprits behind cancer and autism. |
Mills has successfully used this technique to uncover two powerful cancer-related genes: p63, which plays a role in development, aging and suppressing tumor formation; and CHD5, a long-elusive tumor suppressor that is now known to be mutated or deleted in multiple types of cancer.
Mills recently used chromosome engineering to develop a new mouse model of autism that provided the first functional evidence of autism’s genetic basis, showing that the deletion of a 27-gene cluster on chromosome 16 leads to the development of autism-like features in mice.
The mice, whose behavior has been documented and analyzed using state-of-the-art video capture, will be invaluable for identifying new diagnostic methods for autism before it becomes a full-blown syndrome as well as for designing clinical interventions.
In the video below, Mills delivers a lecture titled, "Where will the future of genetic engineering take us?" at the Secret Science Club in Brooklyn. March 2012. An expert in chromosome engineering, Dr. Mills creates mouse models of human disease to identify the genetic culprits behind cancer and autism.
SOURCE Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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