How will KOMP affect peoples' health?

As mentioned above, mouse mutants have served as important models for understanding human disease and developing therapies to treat those conditions. Knockout mutants represent one of the most powerful tools in this endeavor. Because KOMP proposes a comprehensive mutagenesis strategy covering the entire genome, all areas of biomedical research will benefit. This resource will be available sooner than if undertaken by individual laboratories which have not traditionally released mutants until after publication. In the long term, KOMP will lay the ground work for large scale comparative analyses by collecting phenotypic datasets for each mutant. This resource will support rapid identification of genes implicated in different disease models thereby suggesting targets for drug therapies. The net impact of KOMP will enhance the rapidity and efficiency with which researchers will be able to translate the underlying genetic causes of disease to human health. Public health will be greatly benefited through the facilitation of biomedical research by making a valuable and important research tool quickly and widely available.