Updated Jul 17, 2008 - 12:48 pm
Seattle institute releases new map of spinal cord
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710 KIRO Reporter
The Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle is releasing the first data from a project to map the spinal cord Thursday.
The spinal cord atlas is meant to aid in research on nervous system disorders and the treatment of spinal cord injuries.
Elaine Jones, with the Allen Institute for Brain Science, says although the map is of a mouse's spine, it will provide clues into some of the world's most devastating diseases.
"If you have researchers who are working on diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's Disease, various spinal cord injuries, now they have a basic map of the entire genome," says Jones. "It's very useful because mice and humans share about 90 percent of the genes. The mouse is a well established model for scientific research."
All the data will be available online, free of charge.
"If you were to go onto the website, think of it as a virtual microscope. It would be just like the researcher being in his or her laboratory looking at the pieces of the spinal cord tissue just as they would work in their laboratory," says Jones.
(Image appears on the Allen Institute for Brain Science's website.)
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