Genetically-Altered Glowing Red Aquarium Fish Bow In U.S.
By rickyjames, Section News Posted on Sat Nov 22, 2003 at 01:29:49 AM PST
Humans have slowly tinkered for thousands of years with the genes of dogs and cats to produce an amazing array of canine and feline companion breeds. Now genetic engineering has been used to produce the latest in aquarium fish: the $5 GloFish, a brilliant red zebrafish that fluorescently glows even redder under ultraviolet light. An additional gene from a sea anemone causes the effect. Similar zebrafish called Glowing Pearls that glow green from an extra jellyfish gene are also available. Both spring from the National Taiwan University's Institute of Fisheries Science laboratories of Tsai Huai-jan, who has performed extensive research on zebrafish that are in many ways the fish version of a lab mouse.
Yorktown Technologies of Austin, Texas, will begin sales of the the fish through pet stores January 5 and call the fish "a miracle of science." The twenty-six year old CEO of Yorktown, Alan Blake, shrugs off concerns that the modified zebrafish represent an environmental threat. "This fish is the same as any other zebra fish aside from the brilliant color," he said, noting that the tropical zebrafish cannot escape and survive in the colder waterways of the United States. Yorktown has contacted the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the Fish and Wildlife Service; none required any Federal regulatory clearance for sales of the
modified zebrafish. A special exemption to allow sale of the fish in California is being sought. Currently the fish are being bred for the aquarium market in Florida by Segrest Farms in Gibsonton, Fla., and 5-D Tropical in Plant City, Fla.
Opposition to the hobby fish on the grounds they were transgenic was immediate. The Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the National Environmental Trust all signed a letter to the FDA requesting a ban on sale of these fish in the U.S. "If FDA somehow fails to regulate the proposal of Yorktown Technologies ... it will set a precedent for all other (genetically engineered) fish producers, and the floodgates will almost literally be opened," noted the request. However, Jennifer Pflugfelder of Petsmart said that chain would not carry it not because the fish were transgenic, but because "we just haven't had any demand from our customers at all."
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