Members of the team that created Snuppy, the first cloned dog, have now added an anemone gene to cloned dogs to create four transgenic glow-in-the-dark beagles.
They claim that this is the first step in creating “disease model” dogs to use for research into human diseases, but other scientists are less certain that dogs will ever see widespread use. Dog cloning is very inefficient–only 1.7% of the embryos came to term–and the team was also unable to control where the anemone gene was inserted into the dog’s genome.
On the other hand, I can definitely see these dogs being highly sought-after pets. Who wouldn’t want a beagle you can find in a power outage?
Link (via BoingBoing)
One response to “Suuure They’re for Research”
Well, at least you wouldn’t step on one in the middle of the night, while groping your way to the bathroom in the dark.