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BOSTON To develop vaccines and investigate human immune responses, scientists rely on a variety of animal models, including mice that can produce human antibodies through genetically engineered B cell receptors, which are specialized antibodies bound to the B cell membrane. These mice, however, often take several years to develop, requiring a complicated process of genetic modification and careful breeding. The time it takes to generate these specialized mice has been a major factor in delaying vaccine development, says Facundo Batista, PhD, associate director of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. With the recent advances in gene editing technology like CRISPR/Cas9, we knew there had to be a way to speed up this process significantly.