I just wish that in all these month somebody somewhere would have tested on a mouse then they really would have had no argument. But is it even that easy to find even a mouse with RRM2B
It is a long time ago since I did any lab-based research, so anyone who has more up to date knowledge, please feel free to correct me.
It is actually a really difficult and long process to do this. Firstly you need the money - so a grant application, or protocol amendment of an existing research project (can you do this in lab research? I'm in clinical trials these days). That will inevitably take several months.
Then, when you get the money/go ahead you have to create a mouse with the mutation. I can't remember the exact process, but I imagine that with this particular mutation being so catastrophic there would be a high risk of the mice with it being stillborn or spontaneously aborted.
Once you find a way of getting the mice to actually survive long enough to try this drug, you need a lot of mice over several generations all living long enough to get a good idea about whether or not this treatment is working. That can take a long time. Potentially a year? Unless, of course the results are clear cut and the mice either die quickly or start tap dancing across their cages - but generally, in science, there are lots of ambiguities so you need a lot of results to see a pattern. In this case I would imagine there would be a need for a post mortem exam of the mice brain to see if the drug did pass the BBB. I also imagine that if this happened it would be dose dependent and there could be a potential systemic impact of the drug at the dose needed to pass the BBB? (assuming it was higher doses could do it). So that's more experiments - to see what doses to use, what affects they have on other parts of the body.
That's before you get to the stage of analysing results, writing papers, peer review etc etc.
And we haven't even got onto when to apply or whether to apply to take this into a clinical trial for humans.....