http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17003-fluorescent-puppy-is-worlds-first-transgenic-dog.html
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Scientists Create Fluorescent Puppy
(April 24) – Bioengineering is going to the
dogs.
A team of South Korean scientists has
created the world’s first fluorescent
puppy, according to New Scientist
magazine.
The cloned beagle, dubbed Ruppy, which
is short for Ruby Puppy, made her
photographic debut on Thursday. The
four-legged experiment looks like a
normal pup in daylight, but under
ultraviolet light she glows red.
The odd effect was created by cloning
cells that include a red fluorescent gene
that sea anemones produce.
Ruppy is transgenic, meaning she has
genes from another animal. Scientists
said they hope this will pave the way to
model human diseases in dogs, whose
relatively long life-span could make them
better study subjects than other animals.
While scientists have created other
animals that glow, Ruppy is a first for
canines. The magazine said scientists
also created four other beagles that share
her same red trait.
Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National
University in South Korea lead the team
that created the dogs. Stem cell
researcher Woo Suk Hwang was also
part of that team. Hwang has come under
fire for fraudulent work with human cells,
but he also helped create the first cloned
dog, Snuppy, and an investigation later
validated the dog experiment.
One scientist called the glowing puppy an
“important accomplishment.” But another
dog geneticist doubted the experiment’s
value, calling the developmental process
“laborious, expensive and slow.”
Read the full story in the New Scientist.
Posted on 04/25/2009
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