Food Inc.

I just recently watched Food Inc., a film documenting the food industry, more specifically, farm animals. Before I watched this film, I was already aware of what really goes on in these industries. I have read many articles, heard many stories, and watched many short films on the secrets of where our food really comes from. Every time I learn more, it convinces me a little more to become a Pescetarian, and maybe I will even go all the way and become vegan someday. Becoming a Pescetarian would not be such a bad idea because of its many health benefits.

Aside from leaning more towards excluding meat from my diet, I also wondered about the science behind the production of these animals. How did these farmers decide which animal they would mass produce? How did they get these animals to be relatively the same size? They have to find some way to produce mass amounts of animals that are big without having to rob a bank. After dedicating a second or two to think about the answer, I assembled the puzzle pieces together and realized that it correlates to my topic of genetically modified animals.

Yes, genetically modified animals not only contribute to researching medicine and diseases, but they also play a role in the food industry. This just gives you and idea of how broad the topic of transgenic animals is. Ranging from medicine to food, these animals play a large role in our lives. And although my research is on the role of genetically modified animals in medicine, I wanted to give you all an idea of another approach that could have been taken while still researching about transgenic animals. They aren't all meant to be lab animals.

Transgenic Animals

I want to dedicate this post to talk more about genetically modified animals and share some interesting facts that I found while researching.

Now, you would think most of these animals to be super animals that have some outrageous power that makes them a mix between two or maybe even several animals. You actually aren't that far off from reality! Believe it or not, with today's technology, there are some weird and crazy looking animals out there.

Take a look at these animals. Can you guess which ones are real and which ones are fake? 

Glow-in-the Dark Cats? 

Web-Spinning Goats?

Dog + Lion = Dolion

Cat + Lemur = Lemurat

Umbuku Lizard

Of course not all of these animals are real. But you'd be surprised to finds out which ones actually do exist. Only two of these five bizarre animals are real; the cats and goats. 

Yes, there are actual cats that glow in the dark. They glow-in-the-dark because a glow-in-the-dark gene is inserted into their genomes with flourescence. And the web-spinning goat? The goat does not actually spin webs like spiders do. Their genetically modified milk is what can be used to produce web-like material. 

As you can see, animals are genetically modified to possess odd characteristics and abilities. Some are unpredictable and you wouldn't even think they are real. 

Beginning the Research

Now that I have a topic and narrowed it down to a question, the researching begins.
Genetically modified or transgenic animals and their role in medicine is not something I know much about. I chose the topic knowing the mere facts that genes of animals are changed for the obvious reasons of aesthetics and survival for the animals and humans too. If someone were to ask me what about medicine and transgenic animals, I would not know what to say after the fact that transgenic animals are used towards the field of medicine. This is where my problem begins, but will end as I begin my research.

After a class learning about the different researching tools provided by UB's library, I found many sources, both scholarly and non-scholarly, but reliable. From just reading the titles and summaries of most of these sources, my knowledge about transgenic animals and their impact on medicine has increased that much more. I was fascinated to find that many sources I came across were about transgenic animals and Alzheimer's.

Calcium dysregulation in Alzheimer's disease: Recent advances gained from genetically modified animals is a journal article from "Cell Calcium" about the success of Alzheimer's research because of genetically modified animals. These animals, more specifically, the triple transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease displayed a synaptic dysfunction and behavioral defects of a great abundance of amyloid-beta peptides. These amyloid-beta peptides are the primary reason why cells cannot maintain at an intracellular calcium homeostasis, which causes a loss in cell count. Although it has not yet been discovered why this synaptic dysfunction occurs, the transgenic mouse have already made a great contribution towards cure for Alzheimer's disease, and we all know that Alzheimer's can be a very dangerous disease.