# Genetically Altered Monkey **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2001, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580 "2001-01-11T21:03:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/1 "2001-01-11T21:03:04Z")
The New York Times is reporting that researchers have bred a baby monkey who carries a gene from a jellyfish. Now, the jellyfish gene isn’t supposed to _do_ anything; it’s just to prove that the alteration (insertion of a gene) can be done. The article says (and I trust this is a small enough except to not be a copyright infringement): > [@](#): > > Dr. Gerald Schatten, the senior author of the report, to be published on Friday in the journal Science, said his ultimate goal was to create colonies of monkeys, with each monkey genetically modified to develop a human disease. Then he could use the animals to study new treatments for humans with the disease, he said. Is anyone else disturbed by this? I am not an animal-rights activist; I eat meat, wear leather, and do not object to some testing on animals, so I’m having to give some thought to what, precisely, I don’t like about this. In the meantime, I thought I’d throw the subject open for discussion and see what you guys think of it. ---
**Author:** ![McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/2 "2001-01-11T21:14:14Z")
The one thing I can see that’s wrong with it is that it would probably take one hell of a lot of monkeys to get it right for a large number of diseases. That said, if the cure for AIDS is hidden in the genes of some monkey somewhere then they can take as long as they like. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/3 "2001-01-11T21:16:32Z")
Wow. I’m no animal rights activist either but I don’t know that I like that idea as well. I mean, I couldn’t do it myself. But I couldn’t do irritant tests on poor little bunnies’ eyes either 😛 The gene isn’t “supposed” to do anything? LOL, and I thought I didn’t know about genetics! 😛 I, like you, can’t put my finger on why this is fundamentally different from any other form of animal testing, but I also don’t know much about animal testing either. Not that I don’t care, I just don’t see that animals have rights comparable to people. Not like I’d do tests on my own pet, of course. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Smasho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f9ae1b/32.png) [@El\_Smasho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Smasho)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/4 "2001-01-11T21:32:52Z")
The best part about all of this is the scientist’s name: Dr. Schatten. It’s German for “shadow.” If there is a name that says “cartoonish-super-villain” more than _that_, I haven’t heard it. The report said that the gene that they introduced into the monkey (actually, several hundred monkeys; this was the only one where evidence of the gene could be found) was the jellyfish gene that controlled phosphorescence (sp?). How cool is that? More testing needs to be done, but if this gene were to awake from its dormant state in the monkey’s offspring (via some natural mutation), we could very well have a monkey that can glow in the dark. Now, this is just my opinion, but what good is building an unholy army of the night, with Dr. Shadow holding the reigns, if all his minions glow in the dark? Why not a monkey that could fly? C’mon Dr. Shadow, use your imagination! Sheesh… jellyfish…even _I_ could’ve come up with something better than _jellyfish_… (as you can tell just from my handle, I’ll never amount to anything more than a goon). ---
**Author:** ![McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/5 "2001-01-11T21:46:54Z")
Apparently that fluorescent thing isn’t as useless as we thought. If you carry one with you at night you’ll never get run over, if your power goes you can still have a nightlight, you could trick your neighbours into thinking you’d had a toxic gas leak…the possibilities are endless. Oh, and you can track diseases with it as well (see below). [http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/monkey010111.html](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/monkey010111.html) Pretty cool stuff. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/6 "2001-01-11T21:51:50Z")
[Here’s a link](http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;%24sessionid%24AOZT0DAAACVUGCRBADLCFEYKEEANOIV2?type=topnews&Repository=USTOPNEWS_REP&RepositoryStoryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FUsTopNews%2FNEWS-SCIENCE-MONKEY-DC_NEW.XML) to a reuters site on the little guy. Some quotes (in case the link disappears, I don’t know how reuters works). > [@](#): > > Schatten stressed that ANDi is not green. “These are not Day-Glo monkeys,” he said. Damn! There goes the flying monkey hypothesis. > [@](#): > > “We wouldn’t want to make a monkey that carries a disease unless we knew there was a cure right in front of us. Our goal isn’t to make sick monkeys. Our goal is to eradicate diseases,” he said. This eases my mind a bit. They’d have a non-tested “cure”, say, and then we create the monkeys with the disease and see if the cure works. Something interesting here, too… > [@](#): > > Schatten said his team next wants to learn how to control just where the gene is inserted into a cell’s DNA, which could be important to how the gene works. A lot of monkeys to make, that’s for sure! ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/7 "2001-01-11T22:00:34Z")
Once again, the Reuters link says, “Article requested is unavailable.” Is it a registration thing? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/8 "2001-01-11T22:25:36Z")
In December 1999: [Scientists Mix Genes of Monkey With Jellyfish](http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/monkeygenes991223.html) So, they finally got an actual baby monkey, huh? > **[Scientists Produce Monkey Altered by Added Gene (Published 2001)](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/science/scientists-produce-monkey-altered-by-added-gene.html)** > > Scientists in Portland report that they have inserted a new gene into a monkey egg, fertilized the egg, and produced a baby monkey with the added gene in its cells. (the _Times_ requires registration, but it’s not that big a deal–just sex, age, and income) > [@](#): > > January 11, 2001 > Scientists Produce Monkey Altered by Added Gene > By GINA KOLATA > Scientists in Portland report that they have inserted a new gene into a monkey egg, fertilized the egg, and produced a baby monkey with the added gene in its cells. > > The gene is only a marker — when it is active, it directs cells to make a protein that fluoresces — and in any event it has not elicited this protein in the monkey. But the work is believed to be the first time researchers have used the techniques of genetic engineering to alter an unfertilized egg, intending that the change would be passed on to future generations, in the human family, primates. (It is too soon to tell whether the new gene will appear in the monkey’s sperm cells.) > > Dr. Gerald Schatten, the senior author of the report, to be published on Friday in the journal Science, said his ultimate goal was to create colonies of monkeys, with each monkey genetically modified to develop a human disease. Then he could use the animals to study new treatments for humans with the disease, he said. I dunno, Jodi, off the top of my head, it just sounds like more animal testing to me. So they’re testing genes instead of makeup, what’s the difference? [shrug] ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/9 "2001-01-11T22:51:17Z")
[This one will work.](http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&Repository=USTOPNEWS_REP&RepositoryStoryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FUsTopNews%2FNEWS-SCIENCE-MONKEY-DC_NEW.XML) Gotta be careful how you get the reuters links because they set up “session IDs” for some reason. All the quotes from above were from this article. DDG, I _knew_ I had heard about this before! ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/10 "2001-01-11T22:54:50Z")
Reuters Schmeuters. Forget that link too. I don’t know why I can’t get there…they must not allow links from external pages. But it’s on the main page of [http://www.reuters.com](http://www.reuters.com) ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2001, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/11 "2001-01-11T23:25:13Z")
I’ll happily support tests on monkeys if the end result is the discovery of the butler gene. I can understand being against it if you’re against animal testing. But you claim in the OP, **Jodi** , not to be against it, in general. Right now we’re creating lab animals whose sole purpose in life is to be tested until they die. This is the same thing. The only difference here is that we’re creating a completly new type of animal, one that’s never been seen on Earth before. Maybe the objection is that if we’re doing that, we should study the life, not the death, of said animals. Or maybe the objection is that we’re going too fast in our pursuit of knowledge. Scientists combine a jellyfish with a monkey and instead of celebrating that accomplishment scientists are saying “OK, now what?” Then they think about breeding them with cancer and seeing what happens. Maybe the objection lies in the fact that the scientists aren’t taking a step back and looking at what they’ve accomplished, but rushing blindly into a new area of science before they’re ready for the consequences of their actions. Stack too many giants on top of one another’s shoulders, and one of them will eventually lose its balance. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/12 "2001-01-12T00:25:34Z")
El Smasho wrote: > [@](#): > > Why not a monkey that could fly? C’mon Dr. Shadow, use your imagination! Sheesh… jellyfish…even _I_ could’ve come up with something better than _jellyfish_… One step at a time. Glow-in-the-dark Monkey is merely the first phase of Dr. Shadow’s master plan to create the Monkey X-Men. We’ll have teleporting psychic monkeys that can shoot death rays from their eyes in no time. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/13 "2001-01-12T00:29:50Z")
But seriously, folks: We actually do something akin to genetically engineering intentionally-diseased monkeys _already_. Laboratory rats used for testing potential carcinogens are bred specifically to be susceptible to cancer. This allows a smaller number of lab rats to be used in a carcinogeneity trial – both in the exposed group _and_ in the control group. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/14 "2001-01-12T05:34:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jodi \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > Dr. Gerald Schatten, the senior author of the report, to be published on Friday in the journal Science, said his ultimate goal was to create colonies of monkeys, with each monkey genetically modified to develop a human disease. Then he could use the animals to study new treatments for humans with the disease, he said. > > Is anyone else disturbed by this? I am not an animal-rights activist; I eat meat, wear leather, and do not object to some testing on animals, so I’m having to give some thought to what, precisely, I don’t like about this. In the meantime, I thought I’d throw the subject open for discussion and see what you guys think of it. \*\* What’s to be disturbed about? We’ve exploited animals for since before the dawn of recorded history. We’ve used them for food, companionship, labor, and even shelter. What’s not to like about genetically altering them to serve our needs in other ways? Marc ---
**Author:** ![Ptahlis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a8b319/32.png) [@Ptahlis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ptahlis)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/15 "2001-01-12T05:58:04Z")
I personally am not bothered at all by this sort of experimentation. It does not seem needlessly cruel, nor are there alternative methods available. Considering the enormous potential benefits, I have to come down on the side of the scientists here. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genetically-altered-monkey/49580/16 "2001-01-12T08:09:10Z")
My family had a german shepherd named ‘Schatten’. Very sweet dog, got his name because he always followed my Dad around when he went to pick up my Mom for work, eventually they realized he didn’t have a home and brought him home with us. Protected us for 13 years.