It’s a (Human) Knockout!

It’s a (human) knockout! What is a gene, what is a genome, what is a knockout, what have knockouts told us and what can they still tell us, and how do we make or find knockouts? This lecture will describe past and present research in deliberately made gene knockouts in worms, flies, mice and fish. They have told us a lot. But these models are not the same as humans. Sometimes though humans are born with genes that do work differently or not at all – these are knockouts. These may or may not have health effects. Many medicines switch off a gene in humans too. I will describe our East London Genes & Health project which among many other aims, is looking at naturally occurring human knockouts. I’ll use an example of a healthy mother with a knockout in the PRDM9 gene – that tells us more about when sperm meet eggs and cells divide.