Mario r. capecchi, ph. d., of the university of utah, has won the 2007 nobel prize in physiology or medicine. the prize recognizes capecchi's pioneering work on knockout mouse technology, a gene-targeting technique that has revolutionized genetic and biomedical research, allowing the creation of animal models for hundreds of human diseases. capecchi devised a way to change or remove any single gene in the mouse genome, creating strains of mice that then pass the altered gene to offspring. in the years since, these knockout mice have become commonplace in the laboratory.
your goal: you are studying how a particular gene, named insom, might play a role in insomnia. you want to study mice with this gene turned off. to knockout the insom gene you will
a) replace it with a mutated, inactive copy of insom.
b) destroy the mouse dna with chemotherapy.
c) radiate the dna, hoping for mutations.
d) kill the mouse and examine its dna.