SAN RAFFAELE-TELETHON CORE FACILITY FOR CONDITIONAL MUTAGENESIS

The Core Facility for Conditional Mutagenesis (CFCM) was born in 1999 with the goal to increase the use of murine models. Transgenic and knock-out mice are widely used in the research because of their high impact in the understanding of the functional role of proteins and because they constitute models to study genetic diseases. The generation of a transgenic mouse necessitates the use of expensive and high-tech instrumentation and requires high technical capabilities. It is uneconomical and difficult for the single Researchers to undertake this kind of project. The presence of a specialized center as CFCM enables every Researcher to obtain its animal model. Costs and the success rate are optimized. Most importantly, we also reduce the number of mice used. Moreover, CFCM offers help and suggestions for project planning. Up to now, CFCM generated more than 200 murine models, most of which contributed to Telethon strategic projects and were described in publications on preeminent journals.