SCID Mice Go Commercial
The Philadelphia-based Fox Chase Cancer Center has entered the mutant mouse business with a series of licensing agreements that will allow commercial distribution of a key strain used to study diseases of the immune system. The SCID (severe combined immune deficiency) strain, which arose naturally from a chance mating of two normal mice in the Fox Chase labs in 1981, was the first to accept human immune system cells, making national headlines for two California research teams (The Scientist, Oct. 31, 1988, page 1). Because the mutation is naturally occurring, Fox Chase is prohibited from patenting the mouse, but careful conservation of the strain has allowed it to be trademarked. Samuel Phalen, marketing director of Taconic Farms Inc. of Germantown, N.Y., which will U.S. and Canada, says that he hopes to begin shipments by April of next year. As part of its agreement with...
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