Drugs from goat milk Farm animals are being modified genetically to produce milk and eggs containing pharmaceuticals. Just after ferilization "Pharmers" insert into the embryo human genes for producing proteins needed to treat humans unable to produce their own. They attach that DNA code with a gene that codes for a sugar found in milk. The therapeutic protein will then be produced within the animals milk.
GTC Biotherapeutics anti-clotting agent, ATryn, is the first government-approved drug from transgenic animals. It replaces human protein antithrombin, which helps prevent blood clots that could lead to a stroke or heart attack. About one in every 5,000 people has a genetic deficiency of this protein. One goat can produce a kilogram of antithrombin each year. It would take 50,000 people to donate that same amount.
Chickens can also be modified to produce human proteins in the albumen of their eggs. Origen Therapeutic scientists hope to breed a chicken that will produce the entire range of human antibodies in its eggs.
Source article: Wired.com
I just want to say that's the single best headline to a post we've ever had on this blog! ;-)
I heard there was another company out there doing the same thing. I think it was Talacris or Talecris?
when hurricane rita hit. their was a tragedy involving ederly people. a bus that was driven by a gut who wasnt a legal resident of us that drove the bus which caught on fire. killing elderly people
In a tragic prologue to the ordeal of Hurricane Rita, at least 24 elderly patients from a Houston nursing home died yesterday in a fiery bus accident as they were being evacuated from the path of a storm that has provoked a peacetime exodus unmatched in US history.
The accident happened 17 miles south of Dallas, blocking for hours the main highway leading north from the fast-emptying city of Houston. The bus burst into flames after several oxygen canisters used to treat the patients exploded.
Rescue crews rushed to the scene, but only 14 passengers were pulled out alive. Huge new traffic jams built up, adding to the tribulations of widespread petrol shortages and excruciatingly slow traffic as an estimated 2.7m people left the Houston area and south- eastern Texas as Rita bore down.
I have a question for anyone who would like to answer. Should gene splicing be montiored in these garage "scientific labs"? give me our opinion.
Yes, I say. We can't tell that for now there are just testing in animals but later when things start getting out hand thety are going to try making the perfect human. Leaving humanity at risk of a generic disorder or death
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