Gene Hackman

A fascinating new Bloomberg story looks at the growing market for mice scientists have gene-edited to mimic human diseases ranging from prostate cancer to diabetes.

Researchers are shelling out big money for the CRISPR-modified rodents, according to Bloomberg, sometimes paying as much as $17,000 for a pair — a medicine-disrupting development that’s projected to be a $1.59 billion industry by 2022.

Mouse Model

Bloomberg talked to Charles Lee, a former Harvard Medical School professor who’s using the gene-edited mice to develop new personalized cancer treatments in China.

“When you do these experiments, you want to be as close as possible to the way these tumors are growing in our bodies,” Lee told the magazine. “That’s not in a test tube or a petri dish. That’s in a living organism.”

READ MORE: China’s Selling Genetically-Modified Mice for $17,000 a Pair [Bloomberg]

More on mice: Scientists Give Mice “Super Vision” With Eye Injections

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These $17,000 Mice Are Gene-Edited to Mimic Human Diseases