Bahrain births first GM animal

The Arabian Gulf University (AGU) announced the birth of the first genetically modified laboratory animals developed by a team led by Professor M. Dahmani Fathallah, Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and senior staff of the department of Life Sciences and Al Jawhara Centre for Molecular Medicine and Genetic Diseases.

Prof. Dahmani said that his teammates Prof. Moiz Bakhiet, Dr Noureddine Ben Khalaf and Dr, Safa Taha were very excited of the success in generating two types of transgenic mouse as a continuation of the discovery few years ago at Al Jawhara Centre of a typical gene that could link the Central Nervous System and the Immune System and control the outcome of infectious diseases and other major pathologies such as cancers.

Prof. Dahmani thanked the highly advanced skills in bioinformatics analysis and genetic engineering demonstrated by the team.

He continued that this was probably the first intron embedded gene to be specifically knocked down in a living animal and expect it will help in the advnacement of scientific knowledge on how intron embedded genes function in physiological and disease states; shedding more light on the genomic structural organization and phylogenetic significance on the intron embedded genes.

Beyond this technological success and the potential for advancing basic scientific knowledge, the team expects to learn more about how the brain communicates with the immune system and how this biological cross-talk occurs at the molecular level in addition to preventing and treating a number of pathological states ranging from infectious diseases to neurodegenerative disorders and cancer.

Prof. Dahmani added that the most important outcome is probably to have generated an advanced and valuable tool for biomedical research and training for future generations in the GCC region.