'Wishlist' of coral colors/engineered strains?

[IOnceWasLegend]

I honestly couldn't decide whether to put this here or in the DIY forum, so here goes.

I'm a molecular biologist by training. A common technique (and one that I've used extensively) is to add a fluorescent tag to a gene to see where it's made, what it's doing, etc. Here's an example with a slice of brain tissue with each individual cell made a different color: https://www.cell.com/pictureshow/brainbow . For a number of reasons, I think that it would be reasonably straightforward to do this to corals for visual (i.e. color) enhancement. I know researchers at Stanford have genetically engineered coral to withstand higher temperatures (link), but - since all I'd be trying to do is slap in some extra colors (which I'd need to check and see if it's illuminated under standard LED wavelengths, actually) - it should be much more straightforward, particularly on soft corals.

Given the controversy around GMOs, I'm trying to gauge interest and see 1) whether that's something people would be comfortable with, 2) coral colors/species you guys would like to see that are either uncommon or don't exist, and 3) if anyone's aware of anyone trying something like this given the thriving biotech scene in the bay.

Kinda off the wall, but figured I'd ask here. Cheers!

 

[ofzakaria]

Reminded me of this funny bit john oliver did about GMO

 

[max_nano]

I think a toadstool leather or weeping willow with a bright red or purple would be interesting. Those seem to only ever be white, brown, or green and they’re leather corals

 

[NeverlosT]

It seems like they only ever get Green Fluorescent Protein to be expressed though, which is kind of a bummer since green is not a color that we are short on. In fact, with all of the designer SPS out there, colors are not as much of an issue, keeping your water well enough to express and maintain the color is the real challenge.

If you could make a coral more robust to temp, alk, or other chemistry swings, especially one of the gorgeous ones, well I think you'd be onto something (like they are working on now).

Problem is the reefs are all about massive diversity, so the shopping list of species to modify to make more robust would be hundreds of thousands, otherwise, you make one super-coral and it out competes all the rest quickly, and there goes the diversity.

It is a super cool idea, the genetic modification. Man I wish we could modify some SPS to be AEFW resistant...