It is hard to study rare diseases because there are so few people with them.
Patients are scattered all over the world. Many are children. Many cannot travel. How to make progress faster?
The UPenn Orphan Disease Center (Think Castleman Disease Cooperative Network, Million Dollar Bike Ride Grants, etc.) and the University of Missouri are hoping to do something to help speed research: use genetically engineered pigs to model human rare disease.
The pigs would be managed by doctors Randall Prather and Kevin Wells at the University of Missouri. The seed money for the models would come from UPENN. On Dec 15th they will meet on how to put this collaboration together.
