Like cats and other animals before them, a couple of rabbits are now among the animals that have been genetically manipulated so that they glow green under a black light.
Using a technique developed by University of Hawaii medical researchers, scientists in Turkey added a fluorescent protein from jellyfish DNA to a mother rabbit's embryo. Of the eight-bunny litter she produced last week, two have the "glowing gene," the University of Hawaii reports .
As we've explained before , researchers don't do this sort of thing just to produce spooky-looking creatures. "Engineering animals to glow — cats, dogs, fish, sheep, pigs, and monkeys have all been made to do so — has been less an artistic endeavor, and more a burgeoning frontier in genetic research," says The Christian Science Monitor . "Scientists say that the glow is tangible evidence that one animal can be made to accept and use the genes of another. And that, they say, is a sign that it might be possible to use similar advanced techniques to treat genetic diseases."
This work is unlike that of a previous successful "glowing" of a rabbit. CNet News notes that :
"Artist Eduardo Kac used the jellyfish-genetics method to create Alba, a glowing rabbit, back in 2000. However, his was an artistic endeavor rather than a scientific one, as this current batch of buns is."The [Turkish and Hawaiian] researchers hope to eventually collect beneficial gene products in protein form through the milk of genetically modified female rabbits in an effort to create an efficient method for medicine production."
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