Using a method pioneered by Hawaiian researchers, ten genetically altered piglets were bred at the South China Agricultural University in Guangdong this year, and all of them emit a greenish glow in ultraviolet light. The scientists injected a fluorescent protein from jellyfish DNA into pig embryos.
“It’s just a marker to show that we can take a gene that was not originally present in the animal and now exists in it,” said Stefan Moisyadi at the University of Hawaii in a press release. The technique will eventually allow genes to be transferred into larger animals for developing more effective drugs at lower cost. The research will be published in the journal Biology of Reproduction.
At least six other types of animals have been bred to glow in the dark, say researchers–a practice that some bio-ethicists and many in the public find disagreeable.
