• Question: you said that your favourite thing to do is make baby fish glow; how do you do this?

    Asked by luv2dance123 to Lilly on 10 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by , , .
    • Photo: Lilian Hunt

      Lilian Hunt answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Ok, I’ll try and break this down into a few steps…

      1. I can clone a bit of DNA i’m interested from the fish and add it to a bit of DNA from a jellyfish called GFP – Green Fluorescent Protein. The GFP gene makes the protein that glows green under fluorescent light.

      2. I can inject these bits of DNA into a fish embryo, one that is just the fertilised egg cell. This means it’s just the one cell big after the sperm has fertilised the egg but not yet grown at all.

      3. The fish will then grow to an almost fully formed fish after 72 hours and in this time, if the bit of DNA I used in step 1 is especially important anywhere it will make the green glowing protein. I can look at the fish under the fluorescent microscope and see these green glowing bits. So for example if the DNA I clone is important to make the eye grow, my little fish will have a green glowing eye! Pretty cool?!

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