Hello!

Well a few days turned into about 2 months... 😖

In October, Paul and I went to Northwestern University to see Dr. Swanson and his lab.  He showed us one of the mice that he had given Katie's mutation to and when he picked up the mouse it's legs were shaking and it clenched it's hands and feet.  Paul said, "That's what Katie does!" She tends to clench her feet and used to do it with her hands somewhat, too.  Not the shaking part though.

When he picks up these mice their legs shake which is not at all a normal thing for a mouse.  Another thing that is different about these mice is that if you give them some paper a typical mouse will shred it and make a nest.  These mice do not. However, when we got home from that trip Katie got into some paper and spent about an hour tearing it up, lol!  I don't know what that's all about.

It was such a good trip and we are so lucky to have such a great scientist working with us to help Katie.

He said that the hope is that in 5-10 years they may be able to change Katie's mutation using a CRISPR method.  It is how they gave the mice Katie's mutation.  It's not safe on humans yet, but hopefully will be in the near future.  What that means for Katie we are not sure especially since she will be older when this might be able to be used.  But if they can change her mutated gene it probably will help her somehow.  I can only hope! Link: CRISPR
#scienceisawesome