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Saturday, December 26, 2009

"The top 5 people of 2009"

From TheScientist.com:
Erika Sasaki

Sasaki, from the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki, Japan, led the team of researchers that successfully generated the world's first transgenic primates capable of passing on a foreign gene to their offspring. The research, published in Nature, brings scientists one step closer to being able to use primates as models for studying human neurological and behavioral conditions, such as Parkinson's, Huntington's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The team injected viral vectors with a green fluorescence protein transgene into embryos of marmosets. Out of 80 transgenic embryos planted into 50 surrogate mothers, five offspring survived, all of which expressed the glowing transgene. [my emphasis]
Hello? So what should the monkeys being used in these studies be called if not "models for studying human neurological and behavioral conditions"?

Deep brain stimulation reduces neuronal entropy in the MPTP-primate model of Parkinson's disease. Dorval AD, Russo GS, Hashimoto T, Xu W, Grill WM, Vitek JL. J Neurophysiol. 2008.

Development of a stable, early stage unilateral model of Parkinson's disease in middle-aged rhesus monkeys. Ding F, Luan L, Ai Y, Walton A, Gerhardt GA, Gash DM, Grondin R, Zhang Z. Exp Neurol. 2008.

Human neural stem cells migrate along the nigrostriatal pathway in a primate model of Parkinson's disease. Bjugstad KB, Teng YD, Redmond DE Jr, Elsworth JD, Roth RH, Cornelius SK, Snyder EY, Sladek JR Jr. Exp Neurol. 2008.

Influence of cell preparation and target location on the behavioral recovery after striatal transplantation of fetal dopaminergic neurons in a primate model of Parkinson's disease. Redmond DE Jr, Vinuela A, Kordower JH, Isacson O. Neurobiol Dis. 2008.

Oh wait, I know what to call the monkeys used in these experiments, victims.

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