Scientists Create Glow-In-The-Dark Cloned Cat

[Shibby]

http://www.dbtechno.com/science/2007...rk-cloned-cat/

Boston (dbTechno) - Scientists from South Korea have come out and stated that they have created cloned cats which glow red when exposed to UV rays.

Scientists created these cloned cats by working with their genetic code of the donor cats. The changes were moved to these clones. Kong II-Keun led the team of scientists who produced three cats which glowed red. They had altered fluorescent protein genes.

Skin cels were taken from a Turkish Angora female cat. From here a virus was used to input the red glowing color into the cloned cats.

Scientists have stated that this will open up a great deal of possibilities for the future in medicine. They stated that if you can pass along code through cloning in this manner to make cats glow, then you may be able to do more complex things which would allow them to create treatments for various diseases in both humans and animals.

Kong II-Keun is a professor at Gyeongsang University. The team, as stated produced these three cloned cats, which they hope will help them develop cures for human genetic diseases. We will have to wait and see.

[Shibby]

Glow-in-the-dark cat could help cut disease

By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 2:23am GMT 13/12/2007

Scientists have genetically modified three kittens so they appear fluorescent under ultra-violet light in a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases.

Glow-in-the-dark cat could help cut disease
One of the modified kittens

A team of scientists led by Kong Il-keun at Gyeongsang National University, South Korea, cloned the cats after manipulating a gene to change their skin colour.

The fluffy white Turkish Angora cats now glow red when exposed to ultraviolet light and the scientists believe the process could be used to develop treatments for a range of genetic illnesses. The technology can also help clone endangered animals like tigers, leopards and wildcats.

To clone the cats the team used skin cells of the mother cat and modified its genes to make them fluorescent by using a virus, which was transplanted into the ova. The ova were then implanted into the womb of the donor cat.

The three cats were born in January and February. One was stillborn while two others grew to become adult Turkish Angoras, weighing 3kg and 3.5kg.
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A spokesman for the Ministry of Science and Technology in Seoul 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 animals suffering from the same diseases as humans.

Mr Il-keun said: "This technology can be applied to clone animals suffering from the same diseases as humans. It will also help develop stemcell treatments."

Kong said that cloning cats with the same diseases as humans could speed up efforts to find treatment and drugs by allowing scientists to study animals and conduct experiments that are not possible with human patients.

The scientist has already made headlines in South Korea by becoming the first person in the country to clone cats in 2004 and has since been named director of research of a state-supported project to clone animals for therapeutic research.

South Korea's bio-engineering industry suffered a setback after a much-touted achievement by cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk turned out to have been faked.

The government banned Hwang from research using human eggs after his claims that he created the first human stem cells through cloning were ruled to be bogus last year.

Hwang is standing trial on charges of fraud and embezzlement.

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

[decadecadeca]

[Shibby]

Here's a cnn video http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/1...c_n_76808.html

[Bouncer]

pretty crazy.

[njjuicer]

id like to own one

[WonderWoman]

Meow! :)

[NewbieChris]

Glow in the dark cats...what the fuck?

[Team Flex]

Glow in the dark cats...what the fuck?

Thats what I was thinking ... A great big WTF????