Bizarre cats part of Mayo Clinic study to fight HIV, AIDS
(NEWSER) - Me-WOW. Some cats are glowing, thanks to researchers at Mayo Clinic, who inserted Rhesus monkey and jellyfish genes into unfertilized cat eggs. The mix makes resulting kittens apparently resistant to feline immunodeficiency virus, which causes feline AIDS. Oh, yeah, and it also makes them glow under special lights. It's all part of a study on how to best fight human HIV and AIDS—as well as battle feline AIDS, which is plaguing domestic cats. The glowing stunt helps researchers track the cats' engineered genes and cells. "We want to see if we can protect the domestic cat against its AIDS virus, if we can protect any species, eventually including ours, against its own AIDS virus," Dr. Eric Poeschla tells Live Science . More»
