Researchers have engineered embryonic stem-like cells from normal mouse skin cells. If this method can be translated to humans, patient-specific stem cells could be made without the use of donated eggs or embryos.

Can we really learn about complex human psychiatric disorders through genetic manipulations in mice? Yes, according to studies of how altering the gene encoding neuregulin 1 affects signalling in the mouse brain.

In mice, deletion of the Rab8 protein disrupts organized molecular distribution to membranes of intestinal epithelial cells. Death by starvation follows, exactly as it does in humans with microvillus inclusion disease.