Nightlights for the Aquarium

This article was written by Oscar Chung and published by the Taiwan Review on April 1, 2006. It reports that genetic tinkering has resulted in fluorescent fish and a boost for Taiwan's ornamental fish dealers.

This article features Taiwan's Taikong Group, which has been exporting aquarium fish to the world since 1977. In order to enhance its competitive edge, the company set up a research and development department in 1996 to apply biotechnology to ornamental fish. The company's laboratory is now turning out genetically modified fluorescent fish, which looks absolutely cool and stylish in dimly lit places such as pubs.

Indeed, in recent years the fluorescent fish has caused quite a stir. The Time magazine placed these creatures among the 40 coolest inventions of 2003. Also in 2003, the world-renowned periodical Science and the Discovery Channel came to Taiwan to report on the story. The exciting new fish breed was later written into a textbook on biotechnology for American university students.

The technology for the breakthrough was based on the research of Tsai Huai-jen, professor and director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the National Taiwan University. In 2001, Tsai announced that his experiments had created fluorescent fish. Taikong Group immediately saw the potential to sell these creatures as ornamental aquarium fish and bought Tsai on board. With Tsai's research, the company has since bred 15 types of glowing fish, five of which are already on the market.

The special glow created by the genetic modification turns ordinary fish into something much more lively and attractive for the fish tank. To render the change, scientists extract genes encoded with a fluorescent protein from jellyfish and corals, and inject them into the fish embryos. This technique has been tried on other creatures in Taiwan as well. For example, researchers from the National Taiwan University recently succeeded in creating the world's first fluorescent pigs!

Scientists have been using fluorescent fish as research tools for some time, but none of them thought about commercializing the fish until Tsai began cooperating with Taikong Group. So far, only Singapore and Taiwan have made the genetically altered fish available to consumers. While both countries raise zebra fish with luminous muscles, only Taiwan has succeeded in making "all-bright" fish with glowing matter in every cell.

After injecting luminous genes to fish embryos, scientists have to wait until the fish mature, mate and propagate. If the offspring also carry the same luminous genes, then the project is considered a success. The fish are then sterilized before they are sold, for two reasons. First, not everyone is delighted by the thought of genetically modified glowing fish breeding outside of controlled environments. Second, Taikong Group hopes to prevent breeding for commercial reasons so that the market potential can be reserved to the company alone - which is fair enough. Indeed, Taikong Group has already applied for licensing and intellectual property rights in Taiwan and abroad for its genetically modified products and related technologies.

At present, sales of fluorescent fish account for 5 to 10 percent of Taikong Group's total revenue. The figure may rise to over 20 percent if the sales of peripheral products - such as the blue light used to intensify the flow of the fish - are sold. According to the company, its primary market so far is still in Taiwan, but exports to other Asian nations such as China and Malaysia are growing. The United States and most European countries are still off-limits to the glowing fish because of reservations about genetically modified animals.

Taikong Group is trying to overcome these concerns via scientific demonstrations of the safety of the fish. The company has already done well in South Korea, which once banned the fish from its markets. According to this article, one of the main concerns among the world's countries that frown upon the glowing fish is the possible effect on the food chain. Would fish that eat glowing fish also glow? Would people eventually glow, too, if the genes worked their way up the food chain? Tsai's experiments proved that even after a fish was fed with genetically modified flowing fish for six months, it still has no fluorescent protein left in its body. In Tsai's words: "It's normal to get this result because protein can be digested. If you get the opposite result, you'd win a Nobel Prize." The South Koreans were finally convinced. Today, Taikong Group collects royalties from Korean companies that are licensed to mass-produce the genetically modified fish.

Researchers in Taikong Group are now assessing the feasibility of turning fluorescent fish into a tool for supervising water quality. They hope that some day the fish can act as an indicator of water safety - for instance, the variations in their color and in the intensity of their glow can indicate the level of water pollution. Taikong Group is now cooperating with the National Taiwan University, the Academia Sinica and the National Taiwan Ocean University in this regard. Meanwhile, the company is also cooperating with the National Science Council. Tsai is now trying to produce a kind of larger-sized ornamental fish a reddish glow.

According to this article, Taiwan has long been good at developing new species through crossbreeding. For example, Taiwanese breeders produced a variety of the discus fish that won the Best of Breed title at the biennial International Discus Championship in Germany in 2004. Indeed, Taiwan's expertise in the field owes much to the knowledge passed from father to son in the many family-owned ornamental fish farms in southern Taiwan. Today, the combination of the traditional crossbreeding techniques of fish farmers and the advanced biotechnology experiments of scientists has been a winner for Taiwan's ornamental fish industry.

According to the ROC Aquarium Association, about 1 in every 8 households in Taiwan keeps fish, because fish symbolizes affluence in Chinese culture. Approximately 60 percent of the value of the ornamental fish industry in Taiwan comes from the sales of tanks and other aquarium products, while the fish themselves account for the remaining 40 percent.

Globally, the ornamental fish industry is worth about US$5 billion annually. In order to promote Taiwan's aquarium fish, the Council of Agriculture contributed to the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Ornamental Fish Union in 2001. The international organization has members who are heads of major ornamental fish associations. It has assisted Taiwan's businesses in attending international aquarium fish exhibitions, where fluorescent fish have been an eye-opener. Member associations also exchange information on research and development.