Insights & updates
Notes on primer design, protocol sharing, and building a better workflow for molecular biology labs.
From a hand-tamed pet in 1820s England to a genome published alongside the human and mouse, the brown rat's path into the laboratory is arguably the first case of an animal domesticated purely for research rather than food, labour or companionship.
From heart valve surgery to gene-edited kidneys, the domestic pig's size and physiology have made it one of the most useful stand-ins for the human body in medical research.
From Victorian pet shows and a Massachusetts mouse farm to gene-targeted knockouts and a sequenced genome, the story of how Mus musculus became the standard laboratory mammal.
From a single cervical cancer cell line grown in 1951 to a gapless reference genome finished in 2022, the story of how human genetics stopped being just the subject of medicine and became a systematically studied, shared laboratory resource.
Long before it appeared in developmental biology textbooks, Xenopus laevis was a living pregnancy test shipped to hospitals worldwide. That accident of history is what made it one of the most important vertebrates in the lab.
Cattle never lived in a vivarium or bred in standardised strains, yet they shaped reproductive medicine, endocrinology, prion biology and genomics as thoroughly as any dedicated lab species.
From a pet-shop fish tank to a genome sequenced by the Sanger Institute, the story of how Danio rerio became one of the most important vertebrate models in genetics and developmental biology.
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