GFP
cwilcox | January 20, 2009Here's a nice San Diego beach scene, made by swabbing fluorescent bacteria on a culture plate:
Now that is just cool. Here's some nerdy-background info on the artwork: the scene, by Nathan Shaner (photo: Paul Steinbach) is made from eight different colors of bacterial colonies expressing variations of the GFP and red-fluorescent coral protein dsRed. It was made in the lab of Roger Tsien, who as you might know received the Nobel Prize for his work with GFP.
sporte | December 29, 2008Cloning the gene for green fluorescent protein is fun. Lots of fun. Cloners have put the GFP gene into rabbits, plants, cats, fish, and worms, and made mutants that code for proteins in every color of the fluorescent rainbow. Teachers like GFP so much that every year, high school students throughout the U.S. clone GFP in biology class.
Now, some people, who call themselves DIY biologists, have started cloning GFP for fun in their kitchens. Other people find this alarming.
From Yahoo news:
Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms…
sporte | October 25, 2008Why should professional scientists have all the fun?
Researchers have been engineering glowing cats, and selling glowing fish at pet stores. High school kids can do genetic engineering too, if they have the right equipment. And you can help them get the equipment by contributing to our DonorsChoose fund drive.
If you're willing to help students, they'll be able to do biotechnology in the class room and learn about DNA. They'll put genes for green fluorescent protein into bacteria and see how that bit of invisible liquid in a test tube gets used to make a glowing protein.
Even better,…
sporte | October 23, 2008This video from WDSU shows Mr. Green Genes, the transgenic kitty, in the dark and in the light.
There's also an interview with Dr. Betsy Dresser, who very briefly talks about the work at the Audubon Center for Research on Endangered Species.
Other than clips of the cat, and Dr. Dresser, the video mostly shows people taking frozen samples out of liquid nitrogen, but there's an interesting bit towards the end where they show a pipette transferring material into the nucleus of an egg cell. Mr. Green Genes is certainly a cute cat.
You can see more pictures from the Times Picayune: here and…
cwilcox | October 23, 2008OK, I know GFP is hardly news since the Nobel Prize was awarded to the scientists who discovered it and made it available to researchers. But, come on - tell me this cat ain't cool:
Meet Mr. Green Genes.
He's a nearly 6-month-old orange tabby whose eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species. He's the first fluorescent cat in the United States, according to Betsy Dresser, the center's director.
The researchers made him so they could learn whether a gene could be introduced harmlessly into the feline…
sporte | October 22, 2008I've heard that all cats are grey in the dark, but I guess that's no longer true in New Orleans. Scientists at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species have made a cloned kitty that glows lime green.
Some of you already know my fascination with glowing fish, fluorescent cats, and cloned puppies. This New Orleans cat is interesting too, partly, because it's the first transgenic cat made in this country, and partly because of the work that ACRES has been doing to try and rescue endangered species.
ACRES has made the headlines before. Dr. C. Earle Pope and Dr. Martha Gomez,…
sporte | October 10, 2008Sometimes words fail me. Luckily, we have videos.
Many of you have probably read about Roger Tsien receiving the Nobel Prize this work for his work with the green fluorescent protein (GFP), but I bet some of you are wondering, why a jellyfish protein is worth a Noble Prize.
I think one of the best places to see why GFP is important, and also to see what some scientists do during the day, is JOVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments.
The wonderful video, that's shown in this image, describes a new method for investigating Parkinson's disease. This is the kind of biological work that we…