Re: Blind chickens lay more eggs

a_l_p wrote:

How dare anyone fund research that won't solve all the world's
problems in one go? How terribly short-sighted and ignorant of them!

I am more astonished that there was no outcry that the labs have been
breeding blind chickens for long enough and in enough numbers to give teh
strain a name [not just a number which you would expect in a small
controlled group]
Its interesting what gets picked up on in response to items like this.
Illuminating on the diversity of the population.
For me - I agree with ALP much of the way - all research is part of
advancing our knowledge and the solutions to our problems are frequnetly
found in the most unlikely research.

And no research is going to solve the political problems of human beings and
their inhumanity to each other. Especially by the likes of certain sectors
of the Western world imposing false morality on other cultures and, in so
doing, denying them lifesaving drugs.

However Its the sorts of research like this study, and hte one we discussed
last week that can end up into the following:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6261427.stm

Anti-cancer chicken eggs produced

GM chickens could be a route to faster, cheaper drugs
UK scientists have developed genetically modified chickens capable of laying
eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs.
The breakthrough has been announced by the same research centre that created
the cloned sheep, Dolly.
The Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, says it has produced five generations
of birds that can produce useful levels of life-saving proteins in egg
whites.
The work could lead to a range of drugs that are cheaper and easier to make.
Professor Harry Griffin, director of the institute, told the BBC: "One of
the characteristics of lots of medical treatments these days is that they're
very expensive.
"The idea of producing the proteins involved in treatments in flocks of
laying hens means they can produce in bulk, they can produce cheaply and
indeed the raw material for this production system is quite literally
chicken feed."
Roslin has bred some 500 modified birds. Their existence is the result of
more than 15 years' work by the lead scientist on the project, Dr Helen
Sang.
But it could be another five years before patient trials get the go-ahead
and 10 years until a medicine is fully developed, the Roslin Institute
cautioned.

Therapeutic proteins such as insulin have long been produced in bacteria;
but there are some complex proteins that can only be made in the more
sophisticated cells of larger organisms.
Scientists have successfully made a range of these molecules in the milk of
genetically modified sheep, goats, cows and rabbits.
The work at Roslin shows it is now possible to use chickens as
"biofactories", too.

Some of the birds have been engineered to lay eggs that contain miR24, a
type of antibody with potential for treating malignant melanoma, a form of
skin cancer. Others produce human interferon b-1a, which can be used to stop
viruses replicating in cells.
The proteins are secreted into the whites of the eggs. It is a fairly
straightforward process then to extract and purify them.
Dr Sang said the team was highly encouraged by the level of the birds'
productivity, but further improvements were required.
"We're probably getting a high enough productivity if you want to make a
very active protein like interferon, but not enough yet if you want to make
an antibody because people need large doses of these over long periods; so
one of our next challenges is to try to increase the yield in egg white,"
she told BBC News.


Chickens had some advantages over other animals for "pharming" because their
lifecycles were shorter, said Dr Sang.
"Once you've made the transgenic birds, then it's very easy; once you've got
the gene in, then you can breed up hundreds of birds from one cockerel -
because they can be bred with hundreds of hens and you can collect an egg a
day and have hundreds of chicks in no time," she explained.
The Roslin research is part of the Avian Transgenic Project, a joint venture
with biotechnology firms Viragen and Oxford BioMedica.
Details of the latest work are to be published this week in the US journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The Roslin team also expects its engineered chickens to provide new insights
into aspects of reproductive biology.
It says the ability to modify birds' embryos will allow researchers to study
fundamental processes that control the very early development of
vertebrates.

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regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk


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