Science has mad glow in the dark cats

Interesting? But what will be the long term affects for these sweet little animals?

You can find them if they are lost and use them as a flashlight I guess, but my concern is will this be harmful later for them? HMMM

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/13/514602.aspx?GT1=10645

I feel really iffy when I read things like this.

I certainly don't think producing huge quantities of glow-in-the-dark cats is a good idea. Cats have great vision and can see each other in the dark anyway, and I hate the idea of producing animals in a certain way, purely for our own convenience or as a novelty.

But the article is really talking about how this has implications for altering peoples genes down the line to cure diseases, etc, isn't it? I still feel iffy about that. Just doesn't sit right, I think we're meddling too much.

Maybe..but if there were a way to fix my husband's type 1 diabetes and bipolar, I sure would be happy about it! Course, we probably couldn't afford it anyway...and I think that there are huge holdups for cures because the diabetic industry/drug industry is so huge and they don't want anything messing with their bottom line. Just like the gasoline industry. :rolleyes:

It's just odd to me why they'd spend their money and energy in doing that. I could be wrong, but creating glow-in-the-dark cats doesn't seem to be the first step towards a cure for cancer. :confused: :rolleyes:

No kidding!!!!

The point wasn't really to create glow in the dark cats (they actually glow under UV light, like a black light, not really in the dark), but to show that they could alter the genes in an animal during the cloning process. You've got to test this procedure with a gene that can be easily observed, so that you'll actually know that the clones have the gene. And unless this gene affects some other process (and it really shouldn't), then there shouldn't be any negative effects for the cloned kitties, unless they frequent nightclubs with black lights or something. Under most circumstances you'd never be able to tell they had this genetic mutation.

Transgenic mice have been around for quite a while, which are usually bred using in vitro fertilization and genetically altered as embryos before being implanted in a surrogate mother. I suppose that's just less precise if your goal is to study the gene(s) that you've altered in order to produce treatments for genetic disorders in humans, because the subjects aren't clones and have natural genetic variation aside from the gene of interest. The point for all of this is to produce animals with human genetic disorders so that researchers have a supply of non-human animals with which to develop and test potential treatments. The only other option would be to test these treatments on humans, and that really isn't possible. So yes, there are potential ethical concerns here (as there are in many other aspects of our lives), but if you want to produce treatments for genetic disorders then this is the way to do that.


By the way, I love that the thread title says that they're "mad" glow in the dark cats. That's awesome! :D If science had a football team that would be a great mascot.

Dear Grumpysgurl:

Thanks a million for this link. Fascinating. I know that the religionists are against "messing with God's work" and that we shouldn't pursue stem cell research nor cloning. You can call me a Humanist because I believe that our curiosity and intelligence and mastery of Nature is our destiny; however, making a breed of glowing cats is kinky and not constructive. We owe it to Nature to contribute positively to our mastery of all things, but not to joke around.