C. Elegans Reverse Genetics Core Facility
Rapid advances in genome sequencing have generated large amounts of DNA
sequence representing the complete genomes of bacteria, viruses, yeast,
and other microorganisms. Ongoing projects include the sequencing of animal
genomes including that of humans. The major issue with regard to future genomics research is to develop strategies to utilize the vast amounts of
raw sequence information towards solving biological problems.
The Michael Smith Laboratories C. elegans Reverse Genetics Core Facility
(CERGCF), operated under the directorship of Dr. Donald G. Moerman,
is a stand alone gene knock-out facility based upon the model organism,
Caenorhabditis elegans. Targeted gene inactivation can be achieved
in C. elegans by a PCR-based reverse genetics strategy. C. elegans
has the smallest genome of any known animal.
Access to the facility will furnish a unique competitive advantage to scientists
not only studying C. elegans, but also to researchers using other model organisms
including mammals. The CERGCF will also act in parallel with the Genome Sequencing
Centre recently established at the B. C. Cancer Agency to speed the process
of correlating raw sequence information with the identification of genes functionally
important in cancer biology. It is also anticipated that there will be significant
interest from biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies wishing to obtain animal
models for their in-house research and high-throughput drug screening programs.
The Michael Smith Laboratories is proud to be a member of an international consortium whose ultimate goal is to produce null alleles of all known/predicted genes in the C. elegans genome. For further information, see the
Vancouver Knockout Project Hompage.
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