Fluorescent protein??? Red glow in the dark kitties????

The madness doesn't end here though...





Full article HERE

Animal clones growing human bodyparts?

I'm astonished and grossed out about this. Maybe this is the future of science and medicine, but really... would you like to know that your heart was grown inside of a dog's body or something like that?

By all means please share your thoughts on this subject.

I saw this on the news last night and they were like, "The gene that was manipulated is harmless" How the hell do you know that?

As far as human body parts being harvested from animals.... I guess if I needed a new part I wouldn't really care where it came from but it seems like it's messing with nature too much. We're going to end up with some crazy disease like Syphilis or AIDS again. PS. How much money do you think it cost to make those cats glow in the dark? Couldn't that money have been spent on something... I don't know... more important? I understand that research leads to more research but come on! i can see it now, "The new Hollywood craze.... Glow Kitties!!! Paris Hilton has one!" that will be their slogan... uuugghh

Well, if you read the scientific article about it.. it's not really literally glow-in-the-dark.

They gave the skin another colour than it usually (I assume some greenish hue is added) is, and because of that they light up reddish under UV light. So that's why you only see their noses and other less hairy places on a cat's face light up under the lamp.

It's fun, I'd like one.. but more because I like cats than that I would need the feel to walk around with it and an UV light all the time to show him of to my friends.

I do wonder if they could do this with my carkeys and remote-control too? I alway seem to loose them and I do have a UV lamp in my house.

Zaggy, I don't think Syphilis was caused by a weird genetic experiment.... I have my doubts about AIDS though.

And well.. growing human organs on animals.. we did that 10 years ago already (remember that mouse with the human ear on it's back?)

You see, we are getting so far with that technique that nowadays we don't need a living organism to grow an organ on, you can just grow them in a test tube.

And since I will probly in the future need a new kidney or something (yay for being a youth-diabetic) I don't care where it is cloned from, as long as it works. (Probably even better than having to wait till they have a dead person available that is compatible with you.

Not so long from now, they will be able to get one of your own cells, put it in a test tube and grow you a brand new heart/ lung/ kidney etc out of your own DNA.

An organ that will not be rejected by your body because it doesn't recognise it as strange.. now there is the future in medicine.

Personally I'm all for growing human body parts and at current the only line i can think to draw on the subject is no complete human clones... (I mean who hasn't seen Star wars attack of the clones.)

If body parts can be grown and death of a being created for the purpose of making this body part does not happen I can see no real problems from my perspective.

However many ethical groups have alot to say on this subject. But I have yet to hear a truely convincing arguement about people who would try to do this properly. Yes the people who go round causing horrible death to the host in the process are wrong. But if it is going to be done right can we really complain?

See, I'm kind of split on the subject. I love the idea of having a glow in the dark cat as I think that would be really, really neat. But I don't really agree with the idea of genetically manipulating DNA, and literally creating a new being just for the idea of killing it and harvesting its organs. Yes, human life is aruably more important than say, a cat's is, but I still have an issue with the fact that they're going to be creating living, breathing, and thinking animals just to kill them later. Hmmm... I'm a bit more opinionated than I thought about this. Funny, because I'm not a vegetarian. -is confused-

why bother manipulating animals to grow human parts, when we can manipulate stem cells, from humans, to do the same thing? (I am generalizing stem cell research, not referring to embryonic or adult stem cell research specifically, just the general concept, not getting into a debate about the ethics of embryonic stem cell versus adult stem cell research here, thats a topic for a different thread)

I meant that syphilis was started by screwing with nature ... Didn't it come from sheep (lonely sheepherders...)? Or am I horribly mistaken...lol

I dunno, Zaggy. I always had the idea Oscar Wilde spread it world wide...


Ehmm.. yeah, very off topic now. Sorry.

Kitties!!!

(So now we're back on topic.)

I like the glowing kitties---I saw something similar on the TV months back, and was like, I want it!
It was glowing pigs,mice and something else, I think. They took the genes from jellyfish.
It was on Animal Farm in the Uk.
I am for glowing kitties-and the more they experiment,the more we know :D

I'm sure it's a jellyfish gene. They have been using that same glow-in-the-dark gene in gene-splicing experiments with a number of different creatures, including plants and fish and frogs. Now cats. I think they use that gene, in particular, because it's easier to see if the splice worked or not.

Those are scary looking kitties. They look like bats from hell. I want one.

That's exactly where it comes from. Specifically it's a protein called GFP (Green Flourescent Protein - yeah, I know, imaginative name.) which comes from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria.

Molecular biologists don't just splice this gene into organisms for the hell of it, it's a proof of concept. It's easy to tell if you've had success with your cloning techniques, as you can visibly see the gene being expressed. Also, GFP is one gene encoding one protein, most genes are not that simple. Most experiments like this have to start off small and work their way up. In the same way that these experiments were achieved using plants and then mice, we start with simpler genes and then work upwards in complexity. I see method, not madness. If you desire a cure for the vast library of human disorders, we need to start with such experiments.

So no, it's not a waste of money. Molecular biologists have to do this in order to work out the best techniques for cloning and gene splicing. It's not very easy and it generally has a very low success rate.

Contrary to popular fiction, it is not possible to grow organs using stem cells, be that in a test tube or petri dish etc. It may never be possible in our lifetimes. We can (somewhat) easily grow tissue cultures, but as most organs are composed of multiple tissue types, it's just too difficult. However, something like a tear in a spinal cord could be repaired, as it is just one tissue type.

You'll notice too that the article reporting 'Animal clones growing human bodyparts' actually refers to human neurons being grown in a mouse brain. This is all media hype. A few neurons does not a brain make. There are several tissue types which make up the brain. Some scientists may tell you that it is possible to grow human organs in clones of other animals, but they just want money for their research. We are very far from having all the combined knowledge and methods to make a human organ, besides harvesting from human clones. (How creepy would that be!?)

Syphillis is caused by a bacteria, and was not started by 'screwing with nature'. We are not the only animals to contract syphillis, and it most likely has existed since before humans even existed. HIV/AIDS was not created by humans or gene technology, it is a virus that evolved within other primates (Chimpanzee's most likely) which then crossed the species barrier. (Most likely from people in Africa eating bushmeat and contracting the virus.)

Besides, even if it was possible to grow human organs in other animal clones, are you not aware of the fact that some people have had pig heart transplants? By which I mean, successful pig to human organ transplants. It's just an issue of supply and demand. I carry an organ donor card; unfortunatley however, most people don't. If more people were willing to give up their organs when they die, we wouldn't have as much of a reason to find alternative therapies.

...why would Oscar Wilde...



ANYWAY....


Yeah. That's kind of messed up.

I mean, do the cats need to glow?

Madness? Why is this mad?

I'd have absolutely no problem with it.

Sure, you may think it's gross, but many people think blood transfusions are gross. But if it saves lives, how can you be against it?


Well, syphilis and AIDS are both natural (see GothPunk's post). To eliminate them is to mess with nature.


I'd say the true evil in that movie was making the children 100% obedient. That should make people against reprogramming brains for obedience, but I didn't see anything in that movie that would make me against cloning.


I'm too busy to read the article, but from the picture it looks like they used RFP on the cloned kitten. RFP was an engineered fluorophore, based on GFP, if I recall my biotech courses correctly.


They don't glow, they fluoresce.

And what do you mean by "need to glow"? I mean, we don't even need to have pet cats really.

Maybe they wouldn't so frequently be run over by cars at night?

The cats, frankly, look more annoyed by the fact that they're being held down than the fact that they fluoresce under certain lighting. They look normal and if they're healthy and happy animals, what's the issue?

And I know people who are waiting on an organ. If they can figure out a way to make the wait shorter, it will save lives. I agree we could use STEM CELLS for that, but if we can do it with animals, why not?