The Russells were invited to Oak Ridge by Alexander Hollaender, an international authority on radiation biology who was leading studies on the effects of radiation on microorganisms, plants, fruit flies and mice. In the wake of World War II, research on the effects of radiation on living organisms was a national priority when Bill and Liane Russell arrived in Oak Ridge in 1947 to establish a mutant mouse colony. The mouse program is one of ORNL's oldest research activities. ![]() Jacobs said portions of the research will be used to assist in the development of a new generation of biofuels and ways of capturing and removing carbon emissions from the environment. Gary Jacobs, interim associate lab director of ORNL's Biological and Environmental Sciences Directorate, said the facility, equipped with state-of-the-art clean rooms, will house biomolecular, nanotechnology, and computational biology programs. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will assume care of the mouse colony for the Collaborative Cross, a partnership among several regional universities and research institutions.Īs they begin a gradual transfer of the mouse program in January, laboratory officials will take advantage of the mouse facility to enhance the Department of Energy's mission of energy research. The groundbreaking technique helped established a "clean," or pathogen-free, mouse colony that could be used in other research programs. In late 2003 the mouse colony, which at its peak contained 300,000 mice, was transferred to the current Mouse House, or "vivarium." The transfer was made possible using a cryogenic technology developed at ORNL, in which frozen embryos were taken from mice in the old facility at the Y-12 complex and planted in surrogate mothers in a modern facility on the ORNL campus. The mouse genetics program has a proud 60-year history and has made lasting contributions to understanding radiation, diabetes, obesity, and a host of other human health issues. ![]() Over the last decade, as an increasing percentage of health-related research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, DOE funding in the biological sciences has been shifting toward a focus on systems biology research on plants and microbes aimed at addressing the nation's challenges in energy, environment, and climate. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory is moving its colony of 8,000 mice known as the Collaborative Cross to the University of North Carolina. Following more than six decades of developing a unique population of mice to study human diseases, the U.S.
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