Our UNICAS project aimed to combine gene therapy with genomics to improve the production of transgenic animals. The idea for this project was directly generated by meeting at the sandpit event. The dynamic atmosphere at the sandpit was good and the proposal would not have been thought of outside of the scheme. The networking at the sandpit was also very interesting overall as we were exposed to all areas of university research. The application process was relatively painless and the turnaround was fast which is important to keep momentum in such proof-of-concept funding.
The collaboration I was involved in included developmental biologists, veterinarians and gene therapy experts. Gene edited and genetically modified animals are immensely important research tools (e.g. disease models) and to create products for agritech (e.g. producing human therapeutic proteins). Presently the creation of transgenic animals requires expensive equipment and highly qualified technologists. Developing novel, less invasive, precise gene delivery methods would greatly facilitate the generation of gene edited animals. We used our gene delivery system and tested this to load sperm with genes to generate transgenic animals. We generated data showing DNA can be loaded into sperm using our technology and that they retain the capacity to fertilise and generate embryos. The funding enabled us to start a unique collaboration which is likely to result in a larger programme of work to improve the process of generating these valuable animals. Demonstrating this approach will yield a valuable, viable & scalable method to create transgenic animals by a simple modification of IVF technology.