[Xenopus] Xenopus Mutant Resource

[National Xenopus Resource]

Dear Xenopus Community,



        I am happy to announce that we have just been awarded a grant from the NIH (ORIP), which provides funding to create a new “Xenopus Mutant Resource”. The goal of this resource is to promote the use of Xenopus in modeling human disease mutants. First, it provides funding to continue generating novel mutants here at the NXR. Second, it provides funding to make visits to the NXR more affordable for researches interested in working with our mutant and transgenic animals. Third, it supports the creation of new transgenic animals for genome editing. If you have any specific lines you want made please contact us. Fourth, we will also be working on creating new knockin lines, so once we have that going well we will request from you what knockins you would want.



            My plan is to have 2 new research assistants working on this project (in addition to the 3 RAs currently in the lab), making at least 25 new mutant lines per year. If you would like a specific mutant made, email xenopus at mbl.edu<mailto:xenopus at mbl.edu> and we can start the process. My RAs will work closely with you to make the mutant in the gene you want and the region you want. Furthermore, the touristy nature of Woods Hole results in high demand and relatively high cost of short term housing, especially during the summer months.  With the funding provided by this grant I have rented one of the cottages here at the MBL and it is available at no cost to the researchers wanting to visit the NXR. It can accommodate up to 6 individuals and my hope is that people take advantage of this throughout the year (and not just the summer). Since the summer will be in high demand in the future, we may need to set some rules to accommodate everyone; but that will be a good problem to have. You will still need to pay for your travel and there is a small charge of $500/week to cover consumables that goes back to the NXR as part of our Program Income, but you do get access to all of our animal lines, our lab that is equipped with everything you will need, and an RA assigned to help you with your project. In particular, you will have access to more than one hundred mutant lines we have already created over the past several years. Many of the lines are sexually mature F1 heterozygous animals, with the mutant sequence characterized by us. They simply require phenotypic analysis of the F2 homozygous mutant embryos and therefor have a high potential for rapidly generating mutant data We are working on developing a system for reservations, but for now please email nxrorders at mbl.edu<mailto:nxrorders at mbl.edu> to request information and to reserve your time in the cottage. My hope is that this allows people to coordinate their visits, and of course share the cottage to develop new collaborations.



            I am also hoping to hire a postdoc to work on advancing CRISPR in Xenopus with this grant. If you know of anyone who would be interested please have them contact me.



            Finally, I’d like to thank both ORIP at the NIH who funded the grant this year and the Xenopus community as without your support this would not be possible. I’d like to stress that both this grant and the resources of the NXR are here to serve the community. Please take advantage of them, now that getting custom mutants made and visiting the NXR is even more affordable. We look forward to helping you advance your research. I will follow up with another email once we are able to host scientists here at the MBL. Thank you all for your support and I do hope you take advantage of this resource.



Sincerely,

The XMR team


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If the NXR contributed to your work please cite us in your papers.
Cite us in Materials and Methods as National Xenopus Resource RRID:SCR_013731 at the Marine Biological Laboratory
Cite us in your references: Horb M. et. al. (2019). Xenopus resources: transgenic, inbred and mutant animals, training opportunities, and web-based support. Front Physiol. 10:387. PMCID: PMC6497014

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Marko Horb, Ph.D. |Director, National Xenopus Resource (NXR) |Senior Scientist, Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering
Marine Biological Laboratory | 7 MBL Street | Woods Hole, MA 02543
Email: mhorb at mbl.edu<mailto:mhorb at mbl.edu> | Office: 508-289-7627 | Lab: 508-289-7370 | Cell:  508-564-3764

http://www.mbl.edu/horb
http://www.mbl.edu/xenopus
Twitter<https://twitter.com/xenopusnxr>



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