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The inception of genetic engineering, the complete sequencing of human, animal and plant genomes, and the information revolution in the last quarter of the 20th century will forever change the way in which biological and medical science is carried out in the laboratory. These technologies have spawned new tools and techniques that have created huge amounts of data. However, with the increased use of these tools, there is the growing realization that the gene sequences, alone, will not be sufficient to allow us to understand the organisms that they create. With the entire sequence of the human genome likely to be available in the near future, one of the challenges for the next century will be to identify the subset of known genes that are important in regulating the development of a specific organ. Once these genes are identified, one would wish to have biologically relevant model systems to rapidly assess the function of individual genes.