• Question: One day, in the future, could our DNA be merged with that of an animal?

    Asked by alfredfjones to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      1. We already share over 95% of DNA with most animals.
      2. If we reproduced with them we could.
      3. Yes, in the sense you mean it, but it would be trickier to do in the lab and probably not worth the time and effort.
      (sorry if that’s a boring answer :-/)

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Thanks Pip!

    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Biologists love to do things like adding fluorescent genes from a jellyfish or something to other animals (to trace inheritance for example). Commonly this has been done to insects, but it has been done to large mammals too. I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t be done to a human, if you were allowed to of course! Getting ethical approval to do anything to large animals is very hard.

      I think a glow in the dark baby would be, urr, interesting!

Comments