Genetic Patent Landmarks: the first transgenic primate

2000: ANDi, the first transgenic primate, is created in Oregon. The rhesus monkey had been engineered with green fluorescence-inducing jellyfish genes. The object of the exercise was to pave the way for the insertion of human genes associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, breast cancer and diabetes into primates to learn more about how they operated. But the general public was more interested in seeing whether he would glow in the dark. (This had already been shown to be the case in similarly engineered mice). Fortunately for ANDi (whose took his name from the initials of ‘inserted DNA’ written backwards), he didn’t. Some animals whose genes have been engineered in similar ways have not got off so lightly.