From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 21:10:18 MST
Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote,
>Spudboy100@aol.com quoted:
>
>> Born in October, the male monkey carries a tiny extra bit of DNA in a gene
>> introduced as a marker that can be seen under a microscope because it glows
>> green, researchers at Oregon Health Sciences University said.
>
>Ha! I predicted it several years back when I first heard about
>phosphorescent mice! I'm becoming a futurologist! Oh dear, that isn't
>good at all... :-)
The good news is that the gene manipulation worked.
The bad news is that the gene didn't function as expected. The
scientists didn't plan on having a monkey marker that could only be
seen under a microscope. Some of the scientists are still predicting
that the monkey might glow when it is older. If genes from other
animals do not act the same when transplanted into the monkeys, it
makes the study of human genes in monkeys less useful.
It probably will turn out that human genes work better in monkeys
because humans are more closely related to monkeys. But that fact
has to be tested, proven, and understood before human gene tests can
be conducted. If the monkey had glowed bright green, human gene
tests would have been a lot closer. The fact that the monkey failed
to glow may actually delay this field of study.
-- Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
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