Reasearchers appeal to the private sector: Please sequence my eel!

Darkfrog submitted, created time 9 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

This is not the first time that cash-strapped researchers have gone on a mission of whining so that someone else will shell out the $10 million that it can take for a full organism genome to be sequenced. Someone actually convinced a backer that the tammer wallaby would be a good idea (I kid; the tammer wallaby is actually a model organism for some forms of research), but the electric eel, although technically not a member of that most tasty-when-broiled family, the true eels, is surely one of the most interesting.

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Terriers Join Fight Against a Killer Disease in Humans

Eric wu submitted, created time 11 months 3 days (www.livescience.com)

The West Highland White Terrier, called "Westies," gets a disease very similar to humans' idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which kills as many people as breast cancer. In humans and in dogs, the patient's lungs slowly turn to scar tissue.

However, pedigree dogs' breeding records are very well kept and their disease progresses faster, making them a good model for the disease. Although, understandably, not many dog owners are volunteering their sick dogs for animal testing, it is hard to get them to agree even to donate their dogs' bodies after they die.

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Attack of the genomes

yangjane submitted, created time 1 year 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

How many genome sequences do you need to characterize a model organism? For Drosophila, Heidi Ledford finds, a dozen is a good start.
Getting the genome sequence for one's favourite organism is still an achievement, but researchers are realizing that to truly understand how genomes function and evolve, they need points of comparison.

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The choice of model organisms in evo–devo

newsdigg submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nature.com)

Study of the model organisms of developmental biology was crucial in establishing evo–devo as a new discipline. However, it has been claimed that this limited sample of organisms paints a biased picture of the role of development in evolution. Consequently, judicious choice of new model organisms is necessary to provide a more balanced picture. The challenge is to determine the best criteria for choosing new model organisms, given limited resources.

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