Glowing rabbits were born in a laboratory in the University of Istanbul, Turkey in a collaborative effort with the University of Hawaii in hopes of providing more cost effective medicine to cure diseases.
The scientists were able to create two transgenic bunnies, which are considered the first successful pair of the experiment. The genetically modified glowing rabbits were inserted with a jellyfish gene into a bunny's embryo. The DNA of the jellyfish has no other purpose but to make the little rabbits glow in the dark. Now that it has proven to be a great success, scientists will start injecting other genes that are capable of producing protein used among common drugs. Only animals are capable of producing such genes, the researchers share, which is why humans practically need them to have better and more affordable access to medicine.
University of Hawaii's Stefan Moisyadi explains, "You can express the protein that's made from the gene and generate large quantities of it easily and cheaply. Think of a factory built under sterile conditions, it costs a heck of a lot of money. Try doing it in Uganda, countries like that. It is less expensive to purify something from the milk."
The study follows a primary research made in the 80's when scientists successfully created glow-in-the-dark mice, which will hopefully lead to the production of cheaper medicine especially for those with haemophilia.
Now that the glowing rabbits are found to be normal and will live a full life, Moisyadi and company are targeting larger mammals next. "Our main plan was to do sheep, but they only have one or two embryos max," said Moisyadi. "Right now we have 10 pregnant sheep, and we hope that 25% of the babies glow green -- maybe two or three of them.", the professor states.
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