Arguing Over Alba


Who came first?
Alba or the Dream of Alba as Art?

Kac's entire purpose for creating Alba was for display as Transgenic Art.  (Transgenic animals are animals whose chromosomes contain stably integrated copies of genes or gene constructs derived from other species or not normally found in the host animal.  See also How was Alba created.)  The idea of the "GFP Bunny" artwork is not simply the animal but the creation of it along with the public's response and the social integration of the rabbit.  By Kac's story, he searched for a lab that would develop his transgenic artwork so that he could display it and take it home to live with him as a pet.  The name Alba itself was chosen not by the lab that created Alba but by Kac, his wife and his daughter.

The French scientists - Louis Bec, Louis-Marie Houdebine and Patrick Prunet - who created Alba, however, disagree with his story.  They have refused to let Kac display the rabbit as artwork or take it home.  They claim that Kac had no such dream of a transgenic animal but actually found out about Alba fromthe scientists who helped develop her.  In other words, Kac didn't conceive of the idea and then looked for a lab to develop it, but rather stumbled upon actual information on such a creature.
As quoted in the Washington post says,

The lab's Houdebine--apparently contradicting statements he made last month to the Boston Globe when he backed up Kac's story--says Kac is mistaken. He says he created Alba--born last January--for the purposes of experimentation by mating one rabbit already injected with GFP with a normal animal. Such matings allow scientists to observe embryonic development, and as an adult, Alba can be used to generate more embryos. Houdebine says Alba was never meant to go home with the artist. He says he did intend to lend the rabbit to Kac for the exhibition in Avignon, but backed down when his higher-ups balked.

Kac claims, however, that he did conceive of the idea.  He had actually began with the idea of a green dog, which he nicknamed, GFP-K9.
The dog, however, proved too difficult to arrange.

If Alba was actually created for Kac as he claims, then that would mean that she serves no scientific purpose.
This idea has raised a controversy.
 
 

Ethical Controversy?
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