GLOW IN THE DARK PUPPY

GLOW IN THE DARK PUPPY




A cloned beagle named Ruppy is the world's first transgenic dog. She was engineered to glow red under ultraviolet light.


At first glance, this sweet beagle puppy seems nothing out of the ordinary.

But when she is lit with an ultraviolet light, the astonishing dog glows in the dark.

Ruppy - short for Ruby Puppy - was one of five cloned puppies genetically engineered to produce a fluorescent protein by scientists. When placed under an ultraviolet light they all glow a deep red.

They were created by a team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea, who created the first cloned dog Snuppy in 2005.

The dogs are transgenic animals, which means their genetic code has been deliberately modified rather than mutating naturally.



Team member CheMyong Ko from the University of Lexington said they could go on to create dogs with human illnesses.

'The next step for us is to generate a true disease model,' he told New Scientist magazine.

However, many scientists have criticised the process saying dogs already serve as models for diseases including some cancers, narcolepsy and blindness.

Nathan Sutter, a geneticist at Cornell University in New York added: 'Transgenesis is laborious, expensive and slow.' Mr Lee's team only had seven successful pregnancies from 344 specially cloned embryos implanted in 20 dogs.

But Mr Lee said some of the five surviving dogs were now producing their own red-glowing puppies. The scientists transferred the fluorescent gene into each dog's egg cell using a retrovirus, but the team was unable to control where the virus inserted the gene.

Despite this, Mr Lee's lab now hope to create dogs who have a specific oestrogen receptor knocked out, which will help them understand how this hormone affects fertility.

A very interesting topic!

weee sana meron din glow in the dark na ibon ^ ^

Alam ko sa fish ay mayroon na rin silang nagawang nag go-glow, maliliit pa lamang yata. Iba na talaga ang siyensiya!