{"id":206802,"date":"2025-02-19T20:07:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T02:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/your-next-pet-could-be-a-glowing-rabbit"},"modified":"2025-02-19T20:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T02:07:17","slug":"your-next-pet-could-be-a-glowing-rabbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/your-next-pet-could-be-a-glowing-rabbit","title":{"rendered":"Your Next Pet Could Be a Glowing Rabbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/your-next-pet-could-be-a-glowing-rabbit.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Humans have been selectively breeding cats and dogs for thousands of years to make more desirable pets. A new startup called the Los Angeles Project aims to speed up that process with genetic engineering to make glow-in-the-dark rabbits, hypoallergenic cats and dogs, and possibly, one day, actual unicorns.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Project is the brainchild of biohacker Josie Zayner, who in 2017 publicly injected herself with the gene-editing tool <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/wired-guide-to-crispr\/\">Crispr<\/a> during a conference in San Francisco and livestreamed it. \u201cI want to help humans genetically modify themselves,\u201d <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2017\/dec\/24\/josiah-zayner-diy-gene-editing-therapy-crispr-interview\" class=\"\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2017\/dec\/24\/josiah-zayner-diy-gene-editing-therapy-crispr-interview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">she said at the time<\/a>. She\u2019s also given herself a <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/5\/4\/11581994\/fmt-fecal-matter-transplant-josiah-zayner-microbiome-ibs-c-diff\" class=\"\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/5\/4\/11581994\/fmt-fecal-matter-transplant-josiah-zayner-microbiome-ibs-c-diff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fecal transplant<\/a> and a <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-10-10\/home-made-covid-vaccine-appeared-to-work-but-questions-remained\" class=\"\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-10-10\/home-made-covid-vaccine-appeared-to-work-but-questions-remained\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DIY Covid vaccine<\/a> and is the founder and CEO of The Odin, a company that sells home genetic-engineering kits.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Zayner wants to create the next generation of pets. \u201cI think, as a human species, it\u2019s kind of our moral prerogative to level up animals,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humans have been selectively breeding cats and dogs for thousands of years to make more desirable pets. A new startup called the Los Angeles Project aims to speed up that process with genetic engineering to make glow-in-the-dark rabbits, hypoallergenic cats and dogs, and possibly, one day, actual unicorns. The Los Angeles Project is the brainchild [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,30,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-ethics","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}