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";s:4:"text";s:9133:"The ultimate goal of this line of research, though, is to figure out how to make humans resistant to HIV, the virus that causes human AIDS. "Our scientific tools are new, but the ethical questions they raise are not," she says. Vote Now! "The trouble with this approach is that it stresses the use of medical intervention for ailments that also have clear environmental causes," says Wallace. Since the technique was first developed, researchers have made many glowing animals, including pigs, mice, dogs, even fish you can buy in the pet store. Even outside of any ethical considerations, the alteration of a natural evolutionary cycle of an animal could have consequences we’ve not even considered. The crucial point is that chicks are extremely useful for studying embryo development because their growth takes place inside an egg which can be kept in an incubator and studied fairly easily. That was something I came back to again and again. With cats, for instance, there's one gene in particular that codes for a protein that is what a lot of humans react to. As Home Office statistics reveal a 10% rise in the use of genetically modified animals for … “We haven’t shown cats that are AIDS-proof,” study co-author Eric Poeschla told LiveScience. It shows, for instance, that we imbue our pets with aesthetic value. But what gives the insertion of a piece of DNA from one living being into another such an advantage for scientists? Then there are more philosophical concerns about, 'Is this unnatural?' Can Scientists Stop the Plague of the Spotted Lanternfly? Glow in the Dark Pets. Atlantic bottlenose dolphin Winter, whose story inspired the movie ". As we have noted, the technique involves putting jellyfish genes into the DNA of a chick so that it makes a green, fluorescent protein. Thus the chick provides us with a key model for understanding the development of early embryos for all vertebrates, including humans. “We want to see if we can protect the domestic cat against its AIDS virus, if we can protect any species, eventually including ours, against its own AIDS virus,” Poeschla told LiveScience. It's tricky, because it seems deeply unfair, and in some senses, it is. After those eggs were fertilized, they produced kitties that glowed green, showing that they also had the anti-FIV gene. That the protection gene is expressed in the cat lymphoid organs, where AIDS virus spread and cell death mostly play out, is encouraging to us, however.”. You have a lot of those factors wrapped together when you talk about something like genetic engineering. List of the Pros of Transgenic Animals. With a jellyfish gene inserted into its DNA, a hen modified this way acquires the power to fluoresce in a bright green hue when illuminated with blue light – an unsettling ability, to say the least. Of course, that's not any consolation for the animal. Roslin scientists are also working on a strain that can express therapeutic proteins in the whites of eggs. As mentioned before, fluorescent Glofish purpose is to protect the environment from the pollution, this transgenic fish could determine when a waterway is contaminated by fluorescent, therefore if the fish is not fluorescent then the water is not contaminated. It reveals that we're deeply conflicted about the role that animals play in our lives. After all, who needs poultry that can shine a light on itself? Things that are quote-unquote, technological are scarier than things that are, quote-unquote, natural. Author Emily Anthes talks with CNN about the ways biotech scientists are re-engineering animals. Terms of Use The pros and cons of genetically modified animals show that this developing science has positives and negatives that must be carefully balanced. The substance that makes the cat glow is a version of the green fluorescent protein that lights up the crystal jelly, a type of jellyfish that lives off the West Coast of the United States. At the root of it is the fact that this is new and high-tech. Sometimes we want to change them just to look nice to us. Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts, Science journalist Emily Anthes explores biotech's innovations in a new book, She covers topics such as cloning and genetic engineering, Though the tools are new, Anthes says, the ethical questions are not. t first glance, the creation of a chicken that glows in the dark seems a disturbing and unnecessary one. Are we sort of unleashing forces that we can't control? But I think most people are slightly more accepting when it comes to testing chemotherapy on animals, because the potential payoff for humans is so big. “We still have to do infection studies involving whole cats. Biotech's capabilities extend to pet owners. Cloning, for example, falls into this discussion, as does "pharming," or genetically engineering animals for medicinal purposes. 1. This science allows us to create specific economic traits through animal products. By contrast, a mammal foetus gestates inside the uterus of its mother, making it far harder for researchers to monitor physiological changes. At first glance, the creation of a chicken that glows in the dark seems a disturbing and unnecessary one. ", Alphey and his colleagues are working on techniques to prevent mosquitoes from spreading dengue fever, a severe, sometimes fatal viral illness that affects between 50 to 100 million people a year. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Cookie Policy A dog owner who frets about losing a beloved companion might be intrigued by the possibilities cloning offers, while cat lovers with allergies would probably be interested to hear that genetic engineering could offer a solution. "There are undoubtedly some legitimate uses of GM animals but this blanket rise is worrying and bears little relation to reality," she says. That's probably one of the most -- if not the most -- common uses of genetic engineering, is scientists engineering rats and mice who suffer from various diseases that they then want to study to learn about cures or treatments for human disease. It seems like once the scientists figured out how to make glow-in-the-dark animals, they wasted no time in making everything within reach into a Halloween decoration. So the more we learn about genetic influences the more we will know about their environmental influences as well. And there will certainly be cases in which we want to make alterations that are not good for animals, are not good for humans, are not good for the environment, and we should absolutely reject those products. And in any case, a disease is generally a combination of genetic and environmental causes. After all, who needs poultry that can shine a light on itself? Fluorescent chickens were developed by scientists at Edinburgh University's Roslin Institute, the zoological research organisation responsible for the creation of Dolly the sheep. "Frankenstein's Cat" author Emily Anthes with her dog, Milo. Nevertheless, there are other criticisms of the use of GM animals, as the watchdog group GeneWatch has pointed out. Thus it may be possible one day to cook omelettes that could prevent us succumbing to disease, though most scientists envisage a slightly different route in which GM egg whites are dried out before their antibodies are removed and administered separately. I don't like the idea of testing cosmetics on animals, and I think a lot of people would agree with me. These are all questions that come up again and again. I think the point I really wanted to make is that it doesn't always have to be that way. Cat owners might find a glow-in-the-dark kitty to be fairly useful—you’ll never trip over the cat at night again—but the Mayo Clinic scientists who created this glowing cat had a bigger goal in mind: fighting AIDS. Even better, subsequent generations of cats also glowed and had the anti-FIV gene. "The protein itself does not affect the chicken in any way but it is a very useful tool for looking at the very early embryos," says Roslin researcher Professor Helen Sang. In particular, they are working on whites in which the hen expresses antibodies that can block viruses which cause enteric – ie gut – diseases. But the technique had been pushed to its limits by scientists – until the arrival of the GM mutant. Wallace points to the widespread creation of animals – mice in particular – that have been genetically altered so they succumb to human conditions such as obesity and cancer. That's a pretty clear instance where animal welfare and human welfare are in direct opposition. Some answers were edited for brevity. In other words, stem-cell science can get a boost from the glowing green chicken. A cyborg beetle or a pet fish engineered to glow under ultraviolet light might sound like something you'd see in a movie about the future. For example, if this part of the chick embryo develops into stem cells, that tells us whether other animals, including humans, have stem cells in that part of their embryos and will therefore provide us with important basic biological insights." ";s:7:"keyword";s:41:"pros and cons of glow in the dark animals";s:5:"links";s:1176:"Diamondbacks Mascot Rat,
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