The First Summer Course for Mouse Genome Manipulation & Disease Model

Announcement

Dear Sir or Madam,

As we enter the era of functional genomics, uncovering the function of genes in the whole animals and establishing new animal disease models for drug screening and evaluation have increasingly become important parts of Life Science research.  Mouse genetic engineering, represented by its well-known transgenic and targeted gene knockout methods, is one of the key technologies for functional genomics research.  In order to promote this important technology and raise the research standard in the field of mouse genetics in China, we plan to hold the first national course for mouse genome manipulation and disease model this summer, from August 10 to August 25, 2005.  This course is jointly hosted by Nanjing University’s Model Animal Research Center (National Resource Center for Mutant Mice), Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Society for Cell Biology and Chinese Genetics Society, and is fully supported by Science and Technology Ministry of China and Nanjing University. 

This course contains the following components.  1) Management and evaluation of mouse strains.  2) Manipulation of mouse embryos.  3) Construction of vectors to be used in transgenic and knockout methods (eg. BAC-retrieving system).  4) Culturing and Screening of ES cells.  5) Microinjection.  6) Mouse genetic database.  7) Phenotypic analysis in mouse disease models.   The course covers a wide variety of methods used in modern biological disciplines, including bio-informatics, molecular biology, embryology, genetics, cell biology, pathology and microbiology.  During the course, students will be provided with microinjection systems for hands-on operation (every two students will share one microinjection system).  Furthermore, we have invited expert scientists both within China and from abroad to teach the course. The goal of this training course is that through extensive hands-on training, each student will master all the techniques and can independently perform the whole series of transgenic and knockout experiments in his or her own laboratory. 

Because of the limited capacity in this course, we can only take 20 students this summer.  And we prefer applicants who plan to carry out studies using these mouse genetic engineering tools in their research institutes or companies.  Finally, we warmly welcome your applications. 

Course fees:  RMB 10000 per person (covers all the reagents, materials and equipment expenses, and all the living expenses). 

Application deadline:  July 25, 2005

Contact persons: Xu Jie (xujie@nicemice.cn); Chang Zai (cz@nicemice.cn); Zhu Min-Sheng (zms@nicemice.cn); Gao Xiang (gaox@nicemice.cn).

Telephone:  025-58641510

Fax:  025-58641500

Address:  12 Xue-Fu Road, Pukou District, Nanjing, P.R. China 210061

Sincerely yours,

Model Animal Research Center, Nanjing University

June 20, 2005