The Nobel prize has been awarded to three scientists who created the techniques for “knockout mice”. Here’s one article.

The award announcement acknowledged the powerful cells that made the technique possible. The prize went to Sir Martin Evans at Cardiff University, Oliver Smithies, from the University of North Carolina, and Mario Capecchi, from the University of Utah for “principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells”.

Knockout (and knock-in) mice are one of genetics’ power apps. Scientists create mice with nonfunctioning (or, in some cases, differently functioning) versions of specific genes. In one recent example, scientists knocked out one of many mouse genes that allow neurons to communicate and ended up, surprisingly, with a potential animal model for obsessive compulsive disorder. That’s just one of thousands of experiments using these engineered mice. The technique and its iterations are so routine that it’s hard to imagine biology without it.

Knockout mice are, both directly and indirectly, responsible for the breakthroughs showing that mouse skin cells can be reprogrammed to a state almost exactly like embryonic stem cells. Also, Shinya Yamanaka, the scientist who discovered which genes to insert to cause reprogramming, read about knockout mice well over a decade ago. He was doing classic pharmacology on dogs, but decided to strike out on a completely different path because the ability to pick any gene and delete its function was so intriguing.

When Yamanka attempted to reprogram differentiated cells, he started by genetically modifying mice so that their cells could signal (by growing green) when they had been reprogrammed.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine lauds a tool and technique used by scientists in many disciplines across the world. It also illustrates a powerful platform that already owes its existence to embryonic stem cells. Cell therapies aside, many scientists who hope to study a disease in a dish believe there are more to come.