2007/4/28
Space has become the most precious factor in my
research work. At the beginning of my research, budget was the most important
factor. Without money I could do nothing. Five years later, personnel became the
most important factor. I needed diligent assistants and devoted doctors. When I
had got manpower to an acceptable level, I found my space was seriously limited,
which in turn limited my manpower recruitment and research development.
I have been thinking of developing a technique called siRNA to deliver specific
genes to the brain of mice since 2003. The technique uses detoxified viruses as
vectors to carry specified genes to living cells or animals. I thought of using
the technique to knock down some specific genes in the brain of living mice to
regulate their emotional behavior. Though the vector viruses have been
detoxified and proved to be safe, the administrative department of my hospital
is still worried about the vector viruses. It claimed that a high level safety
space with special equipment is required for such a kind of experiment. That
claim was equivalent to an undeniable rejection against the development of siRNA
technique, as I still had great difficulty getting a little common room for this
animal study.
I gave up the idea about siRNA and turned my attention
to traditional genetic methods in 2004, which included the QTL (quantitative
trait locus) method and the ENU-mutagenesis method. The QTL method uses two
different strains of mice with opposite characters to breed. The studied
characters are continuous rather than dichotomous variables. It’s impossible to
say a mouse with or without a quantitative trait, such as body weight or height
will produce. We measure the character of a mouse and give it a figure of the
measurement. We have to breed hundreds of mice and see how the characters
distribute to the offspring. That requires a lot of space.
In the initiation stage of our ENU-mutagenesis program
we did not feel any pressure for space because we screened the mice displaying
specified behavior in a specific room in the Academia Sinica. However, when we
got the waddling and obese lines and brought them back to our laboratory for
further breeding, we were frustrated by limited space. I even thought of digging
a huge basement secretly under my office. My mind was frequently occupied by
thinking of how to get a big space for my mice until we got permission to use
the animal rooms of the National Ocean University.
We drove to see our new animal room last Thursday. It
was about 35 kilo meters away from our hospital. Most people, without having my
painful experience of craving for such a large animal space, would think it
impractical to set up a lab at such a long distance. I was seriously thinking of
preparing to set up an animal room in the Yu-Li Hospital (about 400 kilo meters
from Taipei) at the end of last year. In addition, we have got the promise of a
very nice assistant professor, Chen, at the National Ocean University to help us
supervise the animal room. We may accordingly develop collaborative projects
with Professor Chen and consolidate our branch lab in a beautiful place with
oceanic scenery.
Hong CJ