Glow in the dark pigs anybody? What about monkeys or chickens? The idea of having animals glowing in the dark may come across as creepy to many, but to Dr Boxer, a professor in Stanford University’s department of Chemistry, “it’s sort of what [I] live for. It’s more fun than doing the everyday stuff.”
 

On October 18, Dr Steven Boxer gave a talk on Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), titled “Fluorescent Green Protein: breaking up is hard to do,” which is the main focus of his research.  In the talk, he explained the history of GFP, as well as the progress in the genetic alteration of GFP that scientists have made over the years.
GFP is essentially extracted from jellyfish Aequorea Victoria, triggered when it is threatened in an attempt to blind its attacker. This seemingly unimportant and irrelevant glowing protein is actually an organic “GPS” that shows researchers and scientists the location of proteins in cells of different organisms, activated when exposed to blue light.
Since a key discovery of GFP in 1994 by Martin Chalfie and Fred Tsuji, scientists all over the world have been conducting GFP experiments, inserting them into the embryos of different organisms, such as pigs and monkeys.
In 2006, scientists from the National Taiwan University’s Department of Animal Science and Technology were even featured on BBC news when they claimed to have bred three “glow in the dark pigs”. Additionally, the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to GFP researchers for their discovery and development of the protein.
Dr Boxer spent the afternoon explaining the concepts and history of GFP to students in simple and plain language which ensured the comprehension of all present in the auditorium; he did not forget to pull a few jokes along the way to keep his audience interested and engaged.