02 Jan
2009
Clone on the Range
“DIY BIO: clone at home but kill them later” (Sandra Porter) … I just love that title. Flashbacks to John Varley.
Cloning the gene for green fluorescent protein is fun. Lots of fun. Cloners have put the GFP gene into rabbits, plants, cats, fish, and worms, and made mutants that code for proteins in every color of the fluorescent rainbow. Teachers like GFP so much that every year, high school students throughout the U.S. clone GFP in biology class.
Now, some people, who call themselves DIY biologists, have started cloning GFP for fun in their kitchens. Other people find this alarming.
One of my favorite snippits: “I’m not comfortable with people engineering E. coli in their kitchens”.
image: E coli at 10000x, original.jpg, Wikimedia Commons
