Breakthrough artificial light technology

Modern biotechnology is growing with many unexpected and interesting steps. With sophisticated research and cutting-edge techniques, people today can virtually intervene and transform almost every natural product. National Geographic magazine has chosen to introduce some of these interesting artificial works.

In 1961, researcher Osamu Shimomura discovered and extracted protein molecules in crystal jellyfish that glow under ultraviolet lights. Later, his colleagues also discovered that this fluorescent protein could also be combined with other protein molecules.

The discovery gave Shimomura's team a Nobel Prize in 2008. And since then, this luminous protein has been widely used, helping scientists to mark and track biological processes that were previously They are not visible, such as the spread of cancer cells or the development of nerve cells in the body.

In 2008, scientists at the Yerkes Primate Research Center implanted a virus similar to HIV - capable of altering the DNA genetic code and causing Huntington's disease (a degenerative brain disease). - into a rhesus monkey. The virus had previously been implanted with fluorescent protein molecules, which caused the monkey to glow under ultraviolet light. The monkey's sacrifice will help scientists study the development of this disease in the brain.

Researchers at Taiwan National University have implanted fluorescent protein into pig embryos and made them green when born. Under normal light conditions, they are light yellow green, while under ultraviolet light, they will glow in deep green. The scientists say the organs of these pigs are also green. With this experiment, they hope to monitor the development of human stem cells in pigs, because this species has many genetic similarities to humans.

In 2007, Korean scientists cloned a cat, and furthermore made him emit red light under ultraviolet light. The cat was created by transplanting red fluorescent protein molecules into cloned DNA and then inserting them into eggs, then transplanting these eggs back to the mother cat. In this picture, this special cat (left) emits red light in a dark room, while a normal white cat emits blue under ultraviolet light). Their work will help improve studies on some genetic diseases in humans.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a way to maintain and nourish sperm-producing stem cells from genetically altered mice. In the picture are 3 glowing mice with fluorescence protein received from the mouse; Father mice had previously been implanted with sperm cells that had fluorescence from another fluorescent mouse. The team implanted these special stem cells into infertile mice, and the result was the release of this particular green mouse rat.

In 1986, scientists at the University of Iowa implanted a genetic structure of fireflies into tobacco plants, and as a result, there was a glowing tobacco plant as shown in the image. Unlike the light emitted by fluorescent proteins, light from this firefly - obtained by luciferin dye and luciferase enzyme - does not require ultraviolet light for luminescence, but they require oxygen to be glow.

Adult scorpions are able to emit natural green or blue light under ultraviolet light. Thanks to this feature, scientists can use ultraviolet lights to observe their activity at night without disturbing them. Many scientists believe that this glowing ability may be a measure of self-defense of scorpions, acting as a sun-protection coating from the sun. However, young scorpions do not have this ability.

Also in Korea, in April 2010, a group of other scientists at Seoul National University successfully cloned a dog that emitted red light. This group of scientists said their goal in replicating this is to study genetic diseases in humans such as Parkinson's disease.

In 1999, researchers at the National University of Singapore began a project to study the fluorescent protein culture for zebrafish with the aim of creating a fish species capable of luminescence when exposed to water contaminated with chemicals. toxic. In the process, they have created fish that glow all the time with different colors (as long as having ultraviolet lights). Although this study failed because it failed to reach its original goal, it created a market that is quite attractive and bustling.