About the Mary Lyon Centre
The UK’s national facility for mouse genetics and the use of mouse models for the preclinical study of human disease.
Most human diseases have a significant genetic component. Many variants in our DNA predispose us to disease, yet our knowledge of these changes in our DNA, and how they cause disease, is limited. Although outwardly a mouse looks very different to a human, its development, physiology and biochemistry are very similar. Studying genes in mice can therefore reveal important insights into the functions of genes in humans and mouse models of disease can be remarkably similar to their human equivalent, helping us investigate how a disease develops and how we may be able to treat or prevent it.
The Mary Lyon Centre at MRC Harwell offers a wide range of services to researchers around the world. Services include free archiving of mouse lines to protect them for future use, distribution of mouse lines from the Archive, breeding and phenotyping of genetically altered mice, and genome engineering services to generate new mouse models. MRC Harwell is also home to the Advance training centre, which delivers our world-class practical and theoretical training courses and has labs and training rooms available to hire.
Rich history
With the first MRC-funded lab opening here in 1947, MRC Harwell has a long history in mouse genetics research.
Highly-valued staff
Recognition, support, training, and career development opportunities are provided to everyone at the MLC.
Ground-breaking research
The MLC has driven the development of techniques that improve mouse welfare and research reproducibility.
Working together for impact
Support is provided to the scientific community through the National Mouse Genetics Network and other projects.
World-class training
Practical and theoretical training courses are offered in our purpose-built Advance training centre.
The health and welfare of our animals is of paramount importance.
The Mary Lyon Centre is proactively committed to implementing the 3Rs – the refinement, reduction, and replacement of the use of animals in research. Our objective is to deliver knowledge that will hopefully benefit the lives of people in the future, but we do so with an awareness that we have commitments to the animals in our care, and commitments to both minimising their pain and suffering and to improving their welfare.