Fluorescent fish find pollution

Genetically engineered fish may one day help detect estrogen-like chemicals in consumer products and aquatic habitats.

Written byBob Grant
| 1 min read

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Transgenic medaka fish produce green fluorescence lightVITARGENT LTD

Researchers in Hong Kong have developed a fish that glows in the presence of estrogen-like chemicals called estrogenic endocrine disruptors, pollutants that leach from many plastics such as food containers and bottles and are known to cause breast and prostate cancers in laboratory animals. Scientists at biotech company Vitargent inserted a green fluorescent protein gene into the genome of the medaka fish and positioned it next to a gene that senses estrogen, according to New Scientist. The Vitargent team tested the fish in a handful of sites around Hong Kong and found that they lit up when swimming in contaminated waters, suggesting they may be useful in detecting estrogen mimics in water bodies or consumer products. The fish even glowed when exposed to a mixture ...

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Meet the Author

  • From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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