Advances in genome editing have paved the way for development of new therapeutic strategies for treating human disease. Due to shared anatomical and physiological characteristics with humans, swine are a useful model species that can be used to facilitate the translation of genome editing technologies to human diseases.

The National Swine Testing Center (NSTC) serves the research community in multiple ways. The NSTC works with the National Swine Resource and Research Center (NSRRC) to generate and maintain critically needed swine models of human health and disease.  In many cases, this will involve introducing human disease alleles into pigs to create a disease model (and an editing target) for investigators to evaluate reagents and delivery approaches.  The NSTC will also serve as a resource to evaluate the safety and targeting efficiency of emerging technologies and delivery reagents.  Toward that goal, the NSTC provides, or will develop, the assays and methods required to perform genome-editing and other translational projects in pigs. The pig resources available to investigators represent all ages, from fetal (to allow for in utero therapies) to post-pubertal stages. The NSTC will work with investigators to perform pilot studies, when needed, and to design projects that provide statistical power (sufficient animal numbers and sex distribution).

In addition, the NSTC will provide training to investigators and their staff to facilitate the transfer of new techniques to other researchers working in pig models.