GM hypo-allergenic cats only a dream?
BoingBoing points out an update to the Allerca reserve your allergy free cat article. From the New Scientist:
Allerca’s claims that a technique called RNA-induced gene silencing can work in cats are “unfounded”, says Greg Hannon at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state, and author of the book RNAi: A Guide to Gene Silencing. So far the technique has been used only in mice.
While it seems like we won’t be getting our hypo-allergenic cats for some time, that’s not a bad thing in my opinion. Allerca’s research has not even begun, and is not even taking place in their own labs–rather, they are outsourcing it in 2005. Why pay for a product that is not even in development? And, the ethical considerations of a modified breed are considerable, as RNA-induced gene silencing may cause defects in the animals.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 31st, 2004 at 5:48 pm and is tagged with cold spring harbor laboratory, allergy free cat, spring harbor laboratory, cold spring harbor, hypo allergenic cats, greg hannon, new scientist, rna, new york state, mice, gm, animals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
