Two independent groups have created mice that have deletions or duplications in a large section of chromosome 16. Each team has produced an animal with a different set of features, some of which — such as large head size and repetitive behaviors — are reminiscent of people with autism who carry the same genetic glitch.Alea Mills of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Ricardo Dolmetsch of Stanford University both report that they have engineered mice carrying a deletion or duplication — dubbed a copy number variation, or CNV — of chromosomal region 16p11.2.This particular spot is abnormal in about one percent of individuals with autism, making it one of the most common — and most talked-about — genetic risk factors.Neither team has yet published its findings, but Mills described hers in detail at a symposium in Boston on 1 December.Read more at...SFARI, December 2010.