Your next pet can be a glowing rabbit
People have been Selective breeding of cats and dogs for thousands of years to make more desired pets. A new startup, called the Los Angeles project, aims to accelerate this process with genetic engineering to make glowing rabbits, hypoallergenic cats and dogs, and possibly one day, actual unicorns.
The Los Angeles project is the birth of Biohaker Jose Zainer, which in 2017 is publicly injected with the gene editing tool CRISPR During a conference in San Francisco and live. “I want to help people genetically change.” she said at that timeS It has also been provided Fecal transplantation and a DIY COVID VACCINE And he is the founder and CEO of Odin, a company that sells home genetic and engineering kits.
Now Zainer wants to create the next generation of pets. “I think, as a human species, it is a species of our moral prerogative of equalizing the animals,” she says.
He agrees with biotechnology entrepreneur Katie Tee, a former associate of Tiel, the Los Angeles project is related to the making of animals that are “more complex and interesting and beautiful and unique” than those who exist at the moment, Zainer says. The name of Austin-based is a nod to another controversial efforts-Manhattan, which developed the first atomic bomb during World War II.
In the last year, the Los Angeles project has been working in Stelt’s mode, while his five -person team experimented with frog embryos, fish, hamsters and rabbits. They have used CRISPR to delete genes and insert new ones – the latter are more technically difficult to achieve. They also test less known technique known as integration mediated by a restriction enzyme, or REMI, to integrate new DNA into embryos. Making these modifications to the level of the embryo changes the genetic composition of the resulting animal.
The team used CRISPR to add a gene to rabbit embryos, so they produce green fluorescent protein or GFP. Zainer says they are trying to transfer the engineering embryos to women’s rabbits this week. If all goes well, the company will have glowing baby bunnies for a month. (Rabbits have a pregnancy period of only 31 to 33 days.)
They will not be the first glowing animals ever created. GFP is commonly used by scientists for visual monitoring and monitoring of gene activity or cellular processes within the body, often for disease examination. Previously, researchers made fluorescent rodents, monkeys, dogs, cats and rabbits, but none of these animals were created for commercial purposes. But the Los Angeles project designs glowing bunnies and other animals to sell to consumers. “I think the pet space is huge and completely underestimated,” Zainer says.
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