Ruppy the glowing puppy

Posted by Aimee

April 25, 2009

The worlds’ first transgenic dog, Ruppy (short for Ruby Puppy), produces a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light. Ruppy and four other beagles are the first dogs to glow, though the experiment has taken place in other animals.

Byeong-Chun Lee and his team created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that create a red fluorescent gene. Lee was also part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. They do their work at the Seoul National University in South Korea

Dogs often are used in research for narcolepsy, certain cancers and blindness. The team of scientists are hopeful that the creation of fluorescent puppies will help aid further research in human diseases. CheMyong Ko, a team member of the University of Kentucky in Lexington says “The next step for us is to generate a true disease model”.

Unfortunately, cloing is not efficient, (just 1.7 per cent of embryos came to term) and has moral issues attached as well. Should we really be playing with cells to create such unnatural mutations?

Add in the cost of proper care for dogs (and other lab animals), as well as the public pereption about animal testing, and it’s unlikely that many more puppies like Ruppy will be created.

To read more about Ruppy and how the project came to pass, as well as see photos of the puppy glowing, visit this article.

news