Well I tried doing it while standing on a chair, holding my skirts and clutching a rolling pin but my boss said I was upsetting the other scientists.
I work in a service lab, so the purpose varies. It can range through promotor bashing (to work out how genes are regulated by other genes), or following the expression of genes, creating more human-like mouse models for disease, or studying gene function by knocking them out. I'm a technician so I do the hocus pocus part to make it all come together, but the scientists give me their stem cells or DNA vectors already engineered. I also introduce new techniques. I recently got to go to Miami to present a protocol I devised for vitrification of mouse ooctyes and preimplantation stage embryos, and I'm currently in the later stages of introducing Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) as a service my section provides - it's a form of assisted reproduction, which is really useful for our scientists who are studying sex determination and keep making mice with funky sperm that don't work.
Something like this?
MouseMan.png
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I'd forgotten about that. It was an easy life running my own business back then. Too easy.
Now go away.
Leave your personal biases out of this, Idol. Those mice are fully aware of the risks. They have to sign all kinds of waivers, and pass multiple levels of psychological screenings before they get to that level.
Personally, as an American, it makes me feel proud that our scientists are able to help all of the little boy mice who were born with female genitalia the opportunity to be who the really were meant to be. I'm actually tearing up a bit here just thinking about it...
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