Glowing cats help AIDS research
Posted Sep 12, 2011 7:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
U.S. scientists have developed a strain of green-glowing cats to help in the battle against AIDS.
The cats were created with monkey cells resistant to a virus that causes feline AIDS, a finding that may help prevent the disease in cats and further AIDS research in people.
The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Eric Poeschla of the Mayo Clinic, says it provides the unprecendented capability to study the effects of giving AIDS-protection genes to AIDS-vulnerable mammals.
He says, besides people, cats and to some extent, chimpanzees, are the only mammals that develop the naturally occurring virus that causes AIDS.
The genes that block the virus were found in monkeys. The study is published in the journal Nature Methods.
