ASC Develops Neurological and Cardiovascular Cre-Rat Animal Models | ASC

12/12/19 MILPITAS, Calif. -- Applied StemCell, Inc. (ASC), announced today that it has developed a series of transgenic Cre-expressing driver rat that can be used to generate physiologically relevant models of human cardiovascular and neurological diseases. While transgenic mice have been the most prevalent animal model in research, its major drawback is that mice have fewer physiological similarities to humans than rats, thus are less appealing as models of human conditions. Behaviorally, rats are more similar to humans in their ability to learn and their ability to execute different experimental tasks. Furthermore, a rat’s larger size compared to mice, facilitates surgical procedures for the implantation of physiological monitoring devices. In response to the increasing need by pharmaceutical companies to convert from mice to more relevant rat animal studies, ASC has responded to the market by developing a pipeline of Cre-driver rat and a Cre reporter line to help facilitate this urgent unmet research need in the scientific community. In addition to the already pre-developed cre-rat models, ASC’s also provides custom cre-rat generation services to supplement the existing lines. Ruby Tsai, Ph.D., CSO and co-founder of ASC and co-inventor of the TARGATT™ technology, stated: “Applied StemCell is excited to provide a Cre-driver rat repository for paired breeding with “Foxed” conditional rat models. These Cre-rat lines will express the Cre recombinase under tissue-specific promoters for generating tissue-specific, conditional rat models. These lines will provide a much-needed resource for generating physiologically relevant human cardiovascular or neurological disease rat models using either our proprietary integrase-based TARGATT™ or CRISPR technology.” Applied StemCell’s TARGATT™ technology is an efficient and elegant strategy for site-specific integration of large genes of interest up to 20Kb. This method enables rapid and precise insertion of a single copy gene expression cassette at defined loci, such as the H11 safe harbor loci, in mice or rats, resulting in robust transgene expression. For further details regarding licensing of this technology and service/ product offerings, please contact ASC at info@appliedstemcell.com. NIH Disclaimer The research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44GM108071. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Contacts Applied StemCell, Inc. Gianluca Roma Director, Business Development gianluca.roma@appliedstemcell.com www.appliedstemcell.com