Cloned ‘Glow-In-the-Dark” Beagle

Posted on 04/25/2009

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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17003-fluorescent-puppy-is-worlds-first-transgenic-dog.html

 

Ruppy the transgenic puppy at 10 days old under ultraviolet light, showing the red fluorescent protein produced by sea anemones (Photo: Byeong Chun Lee).

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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.