A BIT of fly DNA might be about to turn the trickle of genetically modified animals into a flood. Biotech company Tosk of San Francisco says it can add genes to mammalian cells with unprecedented efficiency with the help of fruit fly DNA that can jump in and out of chromosomes.
The company’s claims are being greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and scepticism by other biologists, who warn its results have yet to be independently confirmed. “But if it works the way they claim, it’s revolutionary,” says Tom Rosenquist of Stony Brook University in New York.
Introducing genes into…
