This is an national administrative infrastructure set up so that researchers can visit other labs and use their mutant mice (genetically engineered knockouts etc.) to more rapidly test hypotheses and discard them if they do not work. Otherwise it takes about six months to collaborate, quarantine, set up colonies, and grow your mice even before you start experiments. This is a heavy investment of time and money for ideas that could be tested and dis proven rapidly. If your hypothesis works, and you want to further investigate you can grow your own.-- leinypoo13, Mar 04 2009 Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers http://www.mmrrc.or...talogSearchForm.jsp"A repository of mouse stocks and ES cell line collections serving the world-wide genetics and biomedical research community for the benefit of human health." [phoenix, Mar 05 2009] Jax Mice http://jaxmice.jax....hipkCFQ0NDQodLEROlg"Accelerate your research with this new 77-page resource highlighting more than 40 popular and widely used inbred, recombinant inbred, and mutant JAX® Mice strains." [phoenix, Mar 05 2009] Could a researcher interested in doing this not call his or her colleague and say: "I would like to do some work with your mice for a few weeks! Can I stay in your basement?" The colleague would answer: "Sure! Bring your own reagents, though. Also your own shampoo, because I am bald and there is none at my house."-- bungston, Mar 04 2009 Surely much of this type of work can be done by catalog now, no? Sort of a J.C. Whitney for genetics...-- phoenix, Mar 05 2009 Yeah, I understand that a lot of genetic mice are routinely available. However, changing the administrative procedures for <i> where </i> you do the experiments is what this idea is about. Importing the mice into your lab (even for the commercial links) takes greater than six months. Then you have to quarantine, breed, genotype, set up matings and wait for a sufficient sized colony in order to do your experiments, and if your hypothesis isn't valid, then you have wasted a lot of time and money.
Another problem with the current system as I see it, is that their are a lot more mutants which are not available commercially. My expectation is that their is some legal wrangling in order for them to be commercialized.
Formal collaborations are tricky , because they involve resource spending on both sides, which both parties are willing to undertake. If capital and administrative systems are set up with the understanding that their is a non-specific invitation to host scientists for prelim experiments then I think it would save time and money, thats all.
Mutant Motels as a commercial venture actually probably is not a bad idea either, where Jackson Labs hosts scientists to do quick prelim experiments.-- leinypoo13, Mar 05 2009 random, halfbakery