Interviewee: Mario Capecchi. Switching genes off?

There are techniques for being able to put a gene under a switch, so one way is to simply turn it off completely for all time with respect to the embryo, and that tells you all the places the gene is, is doing something. And unfortunately it may even kill the embryo and then you won't even be able to study, for example, what is this gene doing in the adult, okay. So to obviate that problem, what we do is to put it under a switch, and then we'll be able to turn it off in a particular space, for example the limb bud, or in the brain, and also at different times. We can look at it at different stages of embryogenesis and in fact we can wait and allow the gene to operate and make an adult, and then turn it off and ask what is this gene doing in the adult.

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