Jellyfish-lamb Hybrid Ends Up as Meat at French Slaughterhouse

A lamb that was genetically modified with jellyfish genes for advanced research was sold to a slaughterhouse for meat in France, according to European news accounts. An investigation to find out how the genetically-altered animal ended up as meat is underway, according to Le Parisien, the French newspaper that broke the story. “Rubis, the lamb, was found on a plate. Who ate her? No one knows. All that’s known is the meat left a French slaughterhouse in November 2014,” according to Le Parisien. The story states Rubis came from a program started in 2009 called “Green Mutton” within the scientific research group INRA. The lamb was created with jellyfish genes intact to turn cells fluorescent, in the interest of visually studying heart disease, according to the French newspaper. INRA said in a statement that the sheep express the gene to better show grafts onto hearts damaged by myocardial infarction. However, the lamb in question did not express the gene...more