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Welcome to Vole Genetic Engineering
Rodents are remarkably diverse. Different rodent species live in all parts of the world and lead various lifestyles from a solitary existence to taking part in complex societies. As a result, rodents are ideal for investigating the biological explanations underlying different social behavior in different species. The goal of this project is to develop the tools and resources needed to discover the genes that contribute to behavioral diversity.
Please explore the links above to learn about our projects, our lab personnel, and other resources.
What is CRISPR?
CRISPR is a family of DNA sequences in bacteria and archaea. The sequences contain snippets of DNA from viruses that have attacked the prokaryote. These snippets are used by the prokaryote to detect and destroy DNA from similar viruses during subsequent attacks. These sequences play a key role in a prokaryotic defense system, and form the basis of a technology known as CRISPR/Cas9 that effectively and specifically changes genes within organisms.
Why Voles?
Voles exhibit remarkable variation in social behavior, including species that are social or solitary, promiscuous or monogamous. There are voles that vocalize, that live aquatically, that shift their social behavior with season and day length. Their population fluctuations and mating systems have been studied for decades by behavioral and population ecologists, while their nervous systems are an increasingly popular foci for the study of social neuroscience. The number and diversity of researchers working on voles make them uniquely positioned for integrative studies of social behavior. Despite this popularity, there are a variety of obstacles that limit our ability to manipulate gene function and understand its consequences for social behavior in the lab and field.
The Power Of AAVs
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has shown promising therapeutic efficacy with a good safety profile in a wide range of animal models and human clinical trials. With the advent of clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-based genome-editing technologies, AAV provides one of the most suitable viral vectors to package, deliver, and express CRISPR components for targeted gene editing.