How Much Is The Glowing Monkey In The Window?

The thought of glowing monkeys created by inserting a jellyfish gene has some animal-rights types howling. They shouldn't worry so much: Experimentation on transgenic primates will be kept in check by simple economics. A transgenic mouse, for example, costs researchers about $170, ten times the price of a normal mouse. Glowing monkeys? They could cost $300,000 each.

Animals that glow green in blue light have existed for years. This year, Chicago artist

Eduardo Kac Eduardo Kac Gerald Schatten Gerald Schatten Science

That monkey, ANDi (backwards for inserted DNA), doesn't glow. The gene for glowing is there, but for some reason it doesn't produce the protein that actually glows. Schatten estimates it cost $300,000 to make him. That's 80 times what some researchers pay for a new monkey, according to primate researcher Stuart Zola of the University of California, Santa Barbara. It wasn't easy, either; Schatten and his team inserted the glowing gene into 224 monkey eggs to get one ANDi. Schatten says costs will go down in the future.

That means transgenic monkeys cost about as much as transgenic goats, made frequently by companies like Canada's Nexia Biosciences and Framingham, Mass.-based Genzyme Transgenics . But there is a huge financial incentive to make transgenic goats that does not exist with primates. Goats can be used to make certain drugs for 50% to 70% less than other available methods that require stainless steel bioreactors filled with genetically altered hamster cells.

In contrast, transgenic monkeys would be used mostly for experiments and drug testing. By the time such primates are readily available, it is likely that technologies like computer modeling, and cheaper animals like mice, will be much more cost-effective.

Transgenic Animals And Their Cost Sources: Genzyme Transgenics; The Jackson Laboratory; Gerald Schatten, Oregon Health Sciences University; Jeffrey Turner, CEO, Nexia Biosciences; Stuart Zola, University of California in San Diego.

Lab mouse: $17 Transgenic mouse (glowing): $143 - $193
Unmodified goat: $700 - $1,400 Transgenic goat: $100,000 - $350,000
Normal monkey: $3700 Transgenic monkey: $300,000