Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Glow in the Dark Cats

The mice will see them coming!

clipped from news.yahoo.com


SEOUL (AFP) -
South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday.

This handout photo released in Seoul by the Ministry of Science and Technology shows a combo of cloned cats that have a fluorescence protein gene and glowing under ultraviolet beams. The technology could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, the developers said.(AFP/MST-HO)


In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.

A team of scientists led by Kong Il-keun, a cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, produced three cats possessing altered fluorescence protein (RFP) genes, the Ministry of Science and Technology said.

"The ability to produce cloned cats with the manipulated genes is significant as it could be used for developing treatments for genetic diseases and for reproducing model (cloned) animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," it added.

The cats were born in January and February. One was stillborn while two others grew to become adult Turkish Angoras, weighing 3.0 kilogrammes (6.6 pounds) and 3.5 kilogrammes.

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