Ultraviolet marmosets open up new avenues for disease tests

Published on Wednesday 27 May 2009 21:59

FIVE glowing monkeys threaten to engulf scientists in a new storm of controversy over the ethics of animal experiments and genetic engineering.

The marmosets carry a fluorescent gene that causes their skin to glow under ultraviolet light. Scientists were able to show that the gene could be inherited by offspring.

The Japanese breakthrough is the first time primates have been shown capable of passing on artificially altered genes to their young, and opens up the prospect of monkeys being used, as mice are, to study human genetic diseases.

However, it also raises major ethical concerns about the use of primates in animal experiments. Dr David King, from the group Human Genetics Alert, said: "I'm worried that these steps are being taken without any overall public discussion about whether we want to go down that road.

"We may find ourselves gradually drifting towards the genetic engineering of human beings. It is clear to me that the scientific community wants at the very least to keep that possibility open."

The research, led by Dr Erika Sasaki, from the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki, Japan, was published in the journal Nature.

Viruses were used to carry the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene into 91 marmoset embryos. Five of the embryos eventually developed into offspring delivered by surrogate mothers.

They included twins named Kei and Kou. The word "keikou" means "fluorescence" in Japanese.

Conventional IVF was then used to create a baby using Kou's sperm. It, and two other babies, exhibited the GFP gene.