Scientists clone genetically-modified dog that 'glows' when given antibiotic

Friday, July 29, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: genetic engineering, dogs, health news

(NaturalNews) Mad science continues with the recent announcement that South Korean scientists at Seoul National University (SNU) have successfully cloned a genetically-engineered (GE) dog that they say glows "fluorescent green" under ultraviolet light when fed an antibiotic known as doxycycline. And just why did scientists feel the need to spend the equivalent of roughly $3 million on this gene-tampering experiment? To allegedly find cures for human diseases, of course, which is the only explanation that even begins to approach justifying such insanity (yet miserably fails).

The announcement comes roughly two years after researchers from the same school announced that they had created GE dogs that glowed red, and which they claimed were "the world's first transgenic dogs." In that instance, researchers deliberately infected the GM dogs with a virus that implanted fluorescent genes into their cell nuclei. These nuclei were then transferred to another dog's cells whose nuclei had been removed, and the resultant cloned embryo implanted into a surrogate mother (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us...).

In the most recent experiment, Lee Byeong-chun and his team of researchers used somatic cell nuclear transfer technology to clone another dog that, according to Reuters Health, was born in 2009. Now that she is about two years old, Tegon, as they call her, glows every time researchers add the doxycycline antibiotic to her food. The findings have been published in the international journal Genesis.

Both cases of animal experimentation are truly horrifying, as they demonstrate the shockingly boundless possibilities in the field of genetic manipulation that are possible when "curing disease" is the stated goal. Splice, dice, mix, match, insert, inject -- there really seems to be no area that is off limits anymore to scientists hellbent on controlling the entire living (and non-living, for that matter) world.

"The creation of Tegon opens new horizons since the gene injected to make the dog glow can be substituted with genes that trigger fatal human diseases," stated Byeong-chun to the Yonhap news agency, concerning his team's findings. He added that since dogs apparently have 268 illnesses in common with humans, creating GMO dogs may eventually prove beneficial in medicine.

So there you have it, folks, right from the horse's mouth. Researchers are busy injecting genes into animals so that they can eventually inject those same genes into humans. The day is coming when self-proclaimed "experts" will tell human beings that they need to undergo genetic manipulations in order to prevent or treat disease -- and sadly many people will blindly accept this as truth and comply.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us...