Weird-looking Organisms
What are transgenic animals?
Information About Transgenic Animals
A transgenic animal is an animal that carries genes when it was in it's embryonic stage. There are many transgenic animals out there such as mice, chicken, sheep and many more out there. The interesting thing is that cloning is part of the creation of transgenic animals.
How Transgenic Animals Are Created
The first transgenic animal that was ever created was a mouse, made by Jon Gordon and Frank Ruddle of Yale University in 1981. They both had to use a microinjection of DNA to create a transgenic animal. The foreign DNA was put into a pronucleus of an animal's fertilized egg. The egg is then placed into a female animal, and will give birth to a transgenic animal. Sometimes creating a transgenic animal could be bad. For example, is a mouse was made for a model for human disease, then the mouse will suffer.
Glowing Kitten
Here is an example of a transgenic animal; a kitten that glows in the dark.
Panda Dog
Here is a transgenic dog that has the fur color of a panda.
Mouse with Human Ear
Here is a transgenic mouse that has a human ear on its body. It's also hairless.
Transgenic Animal Effects
Though, transgenic animals may look cool, but there are some side effects to them. Some animals will contain obesity, aging, diseases, cancer and arthritis. These animals can contain human diseases. They will suffer from any of these side effects, and could cause death.
Extra
People out there may wonder what will happen if a transgenic animal gets in our human food chain. For example, if one animal was produced with a drug, then the consumers will be affected by it. Around the early 2010s, animals that were produced with a drug were kept separated from the other animals. The transgenic salmon was almost approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for sale. People took a closer look at the transgenic salmon and studied it, and they found out that they were safe to eat.