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Fluorescent fish stoke ecological fears

Night Pearls

The world's first genetically-engineered fish, Night Pearls (Taikong Corp)

When the world's first genetically-engineered fish, the glow-in-the-dark 'Night Pearl', hit the aquarium market two months ago, its Taiwan developer hoped for a sea of profits. Instead, it has suffered a barrage of criticism.

Environmentalists say that Taikong Corp's fluorescent green fish, each about 5 cm long, pose a threat to the Earth's ecosystem. European groups have been protesting against the fish - injected with a jellyfish gene - for months, and the Singapore government last week seized hundreds of the creatures at customs.

"It's difficult to make a genetic engineering breakthrough, but it's even more difficult to commercialise the product," said Fisher Lin, research manager for Taikong, a Taipei-based pet fish breeder turned biotech firm.

Environmenalists say that if the formerly colourless fresh water ricefish - which now glows green in the dark - is released into nature, it could wreak havoc on the ecosystem. But Lin insists all the transgenic fish are environmentally safe, as they are sterile.

The introduced gene comes from a natural marine organism, and the finished product - the glowing fish - is merely protein and harmless to people or other marine creatures. "The greatest worries about introducing any new GMO [genetically modified organisms] are, first of all, the impact on the ecosystem, and secondly, whether it will cause a threat to human bodies," he said.

"We still have high hopes for the transgenic fish and believe they will sell. But we also know people will have a lot of questions," he added.

Taikong has already launched a second transgenic marine creature, a fluorescent purple zebra fish that has been injected with a gene found in coral, and hopes it and the ricefish would swim into aquariums all over the world.

They also plan to introduce multicolour fluorescent pet fish, including red, purple and blue. Each transgenic fish costs US$17; about 30 times more than a colourless ricefish.

"It's very special," said 28-year-old Su Wen-ling, a graduate student who saw the fish at a biotech fair on the weekend. "But fish is innocent. I don't think it's necessary to apply genetic engineering on fish for people's viewing pleasure. There are plenty of tropical fish that are beautiful."

Tags: environment, marine-biology, biotechnology, cloning-and-dna