Scientists have taken a gene from jellyfish and implanted them into kittens to allow them to glow in the dark. While bizarre, glow in the dark kitties actually have a more serious purpose than just being an oddity because scientists can use them to research AIDS.
“Cats are susceptible to feline immunodeficiency virus [FIV], a close relative of HIV, the cause of Aids,” said professors Helen Sang and Bruce Whitelaw of the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh.
“The application of the new technology suggested in this paper is to develop the use of genetically-modified cats for the study of FIV, providing valuable information for the study of Aids.
“This is potentially valuable but the uses of genetically modified cats as models for human diseases are likely to be limited and only justified if other models – for example in more commonly used laboratory animals, like mice and rats – are not suitable.”
To learn more about glow in the dark kitties helping in the research about AIDS, click here.
[xyz-ihs snippet=”GoogleHorizontalAd”]