How will KOMP affect
peoples' health?
As mentioned above,
mouse mutants have served as important models for understanding
human disease and developing therapies to treat those conditions.
Knockout mutants represent one of the most powerful tools in
this endeavor. Because KOMP proposes a comprehensive mutagenesis
strategy covering the entire genome, all areas of biomedical
research will benefit. This resource will be available sooner
than if undertaken by individual laboratories which have not
traditionally released mutants until after publication. In
the long term, KOMP will lay the ground work for large scale
comparative analyses by collecting phenotypic datasets for
each mutant. This resource will support rapid identification
of genes implicated in different disease models thereby suggesting
targets for drug therapies. The net impact of KOMP
will enhance the rapidity and efficiency with which researchers
will be able to translate the underlying genetic causes of
disease to human health. Public health will be greatly
benefited through the facilitation of biomedical research by
making a valuable and important research tool quickly and widely
available.
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