News

Leadership Change for the Transgenic Mouse/ESC Shared Resource

The Transgenic Mouse/ESC Shared Resource is under new leadership. The new oversight team consists of four individuals who have a great deal of experience in the generation of genetically-altered mice.

Dr. Mark Magnuson, Director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology, will serve as Sr. Scientific Co-director. He was previously both the Director and Scientific Director of this Resource and is an expert in gene targeting and the use of cre/loxP - both for conditional gene deletion/activation and Recombinase-mediated cassette exchange.

Drs. Patricia Labosky and Douglas Mortlock will serve as Scientific Co-directors. Dr. Labosky is expert at the derivation of new mouse ESCs and in the design of gene targeting vectors whereas Dr. Mortlock is an expert in the area of both BAC recombineering and transgenesis.

Jennifer Skelton, M.S., will oversee the daily operations as Managing Co-Director. Jennifer has over 10 years of experience beginning in 1996. She is highly skilled at both pronuclear and ESC microinjections, and ESC culture. She will be the primary contact for all routine operations that do not require scientific collaboration or consultation.

New policies and approaches

In order to assure the continued operations of this resource the manner in which we provide certain services is being modified.

1.  Beginning immediately all new gene targeting and transgenesis projects will be reviewed by the management group to assure that they satisfy operational guidelines. There will be no obligation on the part of this resource to initiate projects that fail to meet the guidelines, a copy of which is available from any of the Directors, or the website.

2.  Due to financial constraints the Scientific Co-Directors do not have sufficient effort committed to this activity to enable them to be actively engaged in the design or performance of every new experiment. Thus, going forward investigators who need help in designing their targeting vectors and/or transgenes and performing the required analysis have three choices. First, they may choose to collaborate with one of the scientific co-directors, provided that this is of mutual interest. Second, they may receive consultation on a fee-for-service basis with one of the scientific co-directors. Third, they may obtain guidance from other Vanderbilt faculty who are knowledgeable about the generation and characterization of gene-altered mice.

3.  There will be a greater emphasis on the complete documentation of both targeting vectors and plasmid/BAC constructs that will be used for transgenesis. Vectors that fail to meet guidelines will not be approved for use.

Future Goals

We anticipate that the generation of genetically-altered mouse models will continue to be important for years to come. However, large scale efforts as well as the development of new technologies make it essential that this resource operates in as efficient and cost-effective manner as possible. We hope to achieve improved operational efficiency by requiring investigators to hold up their end of the partnership that, as time has shown, is necessary for a successful experimental outcome. This means that more attention will be give to assuring that experimental documentation is complete prior to the initiation of any service. We will strive to help investigators meet these higher expectations by providing explicit experimental guidelines and by developing educational materials and new online experimental tracking and data management tools.