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In the latest instance of POTUS 47 cracking up the internet, Donald Trump on Tuesday evening declared to Congress that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, found out that the Biden administration was wasting "$8 million for making mice transgender."
It is believed that the US President, in a slipup, went on to say "transgender mice" instead of "transgenic mice." While it remains unclear whether it was a genuine slip of the tongue or the Republican purposefully saying it so as a part of his "anti-woke crusade", the internet is doing its things already -- flooding social media websites with lab rat trolls and memes.
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However, no matter what Donald Trump and JD Vance think, transgenic mice play a pivotal role in medical research and every bill spent on them is well spent. Here are five things you need to know about transgenic mice and their role in modern science.
1. What are transgenic mice?Transgenic mice are mouse models that have had their genomes altered for the purpose of studying gene functions. In other words, these mice have had DNA from another source put into their DNA. The foreign DNA is put into the nucleus of a fertilized mouse egg and the new DNA becomes part of every cell and tissue of the mouse. These mice are used in the laboratory to study diseases and have been found particularly handy in cancer research.
2. Not just cancer research: From cardiovascular studies to drug development, immunology research and neurodegenerative disease studies (Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s disease ALS etc), these animals are used to understand and test medicines across branches of modern medicine.
3. How do transgenic mice help cancer research? According to frontiersin.org, the mouse as a model for human cancer research has proven to be a useful tool due to the relatively similar genomic and physiological characteristics of tumour biology between mice and humans. Mice have several characteristics similar to humans' anatomical, cellular, and molecular characteristics that are known to have critical properties and functions in cancer.
4. What else is there to know? Several hundred mouse stocks containing mutations have been used for a long time as models of human disease and for the study of metabolic processes. Traditionally, the mutations have been spontaneous or induced by chemicals or radiation.
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5. Did the Biden administration spend $8 million on lab rats? To study gene function or to generate models for human genetic disease and to provide models to develop and test new therapies are among the other uses of transgenic mice. According to CNN, the Biden government spent $8.3 million not to turn lab rats transgender but to fund studies meant to figure out how treatments might affect the health of humans who take them.