Monkey See, Monkey Glow.

Meet ANDi ("inserted DNA" spelled backward), the world's first genetically modified primate (order including apes, monkeys, and humans). The four-month-old Rhesus monkey was born with an extra glowing gene--called Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). No, scientists at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) in Beaverton aren't aiming to breed new species of glow-in-the-dark monkeys. What they hope ANDi will lead to is a bridge to finding cures for complex human diseases like cancer.

For decades scientists have genetically altered mice to create disease test models. "But mice and humans are so different in their genetic makeup," says Jim Newman, a spokesman at OHSU. "A medication for Alzheimer's will work perfectly on a mouse, but it may not work at all on humans." Since Rhesus monkeys and humans share 95 percent of the same genes, using a close relative of humans may help researchers speed up the testing of new treatments, Newman explains.

To create ANDi, OHSU scientists first placed a GFP gene naturally found in jellyfish (which glows green under blue light) into noninfectious viruses (microscopic particles that invade cells). Because it glows, GFP is an easy marker to identify.

In lab dishes, the viruses (with the green gene) penetrated the cells of 224 unfertilized Rhesus-monkey eggs. Researchers then injected monkey sperm into the eggs for fertilization, and implanted the 40 most promising embryos (early developing life-forms) into 20 surrogate-mother monkeys. Result: merely five pregnancies--and only three healthy male monkeys were born. Tests show that ANDi alone carries the GFP gene.

ANDi can't quite glow green, yet. Genes produce proteins, Newman explains, and either the gene hasn't been activated yet to produce GFP, or else "it's turned on in such low levels that we can't detect the glow," he says.

"ANDi is like the proof of a principle," says OHSU scientist Anthony Chan. So far, the monkey only proves that introducing a foreign gene to modify primates is possible. So, don't bet on new breeds of genetically altered monkeys to save humans anytime soon.