Russian President Vladimir Putin ironically said that studies on mice with human genes cause him at the same time the feelings of awe and alarm, and expressed the hope that all will remain under the control of scientists.
At the presidential meeting on development of genetic technology on Thursday, the Director of the Institute of molecular biology named after V. A. Engelgardt, Aleksandr Makarov has told, in particular, about research on humanized mice, the genome of which add a functioning human genes to find cures to various human diseases.
Putin called the speech scientist is very interesting.
"I don’t know how anyone, but I personally can tell when you talked about the humanization of the mouse, the sense of awe emerged, but the internal alarm", – said the President. According to him, "from genetic engineering fantasy creates a variety of images of these humanized mice". "I Hope that all this will be under control", – ironically said the head of state.
Makarov, in turn, noted that in the Novosibirsk laboratory mice, even a monument. At the same time for similar studies also use rabbits, rats, worms, and small fish, the scientist said.
