Korean researchers make a dog glow
South Korean scientists have created a dog that shines in ultraviolet light, using a cloning technique that could help find treatments for human diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
According to a research team from Seoul National University (SNU), a 3-year-old female beagle named Tegon glows fluorescent green under ultraviolet light when given an antibiotic called doxycycline.
The researchers also said that this ability to glow can be stopped and started by adding a drug to the dog food.
“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,” said Lee Byeong-Chun, who led the study.
Byeong-Chun said that the dog was created using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that researchers at SNU used in 2005 to create the world’s first cloned dog Snuppy.
The researcher added that since there are 268 diseases that humans and dogs have in common, creating dogs artificially showing these symptoms may help find treatments for illnesses affecting people.
The discovery was made public after four years of research and cost nearly $ 3 million.
