Laboratory of transgenic mice

Shanghai city of China will build a transgenic mouse lab to find new therapies for human diseases, especially cancer types.

Transgenic mice in the laboratory

Construction work will begin in early 2006 in Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park and be completed in March 2007.

Shanghai's Science and Technology Committee, along with the City Development and Reform Commission, plans to spend $ 25 million on this project.

When in operation, the laboratory will contain about 150,000 laboratory mice and must meet very high standards to ensure the accuracy of the study.

For example, air quality will meet the standards of the US Department of Aeronautics and Space and year-round temperatures will be maintained in the range of 20-25 degrees Celsius.

According to Wang Zhugang, director of the Shanghai Experimental Research Center, the new laboratory will promote research on human diseases through studying mouse genes. The existing laboratory has created more than 100 types of transgenic mice to study human diseases, such as hepatitis, leukocytes and obesity.

According to experts, about 93% of mouse genes are identical to human genes.