GM chickens to fight disease

[sunflower]

Link

'Scientists' have created chickens that produce complex human proteins in their eggs (well, secreted into the egg white). This could potentially lead to a quick and easy (and cheaper) way of producing drugs to treat Parkinsons disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer.

 

[pixie]

Now I'd like to know when they're going to make a hen that lays golden eggs

 

[weevil]

Well, finally someone has found a use for egg white then

 

[kildalton]

What about meringue?Another piece of research in the paper today says that the statin cholesterol lowering drugs I dish out in bucket loads predispose to Parkinsons!

 

[weevil]

Hmm, saw the statin thing as well. But it doesn't look conclusive and even if there is a link it may not be causal (I don't think the study even looked at patients who had been taking statins to lower LDL)

 

[kildalton]

No, I agree I don't normally comment on research articles until I've read them myself, I'm sure the article was only in the press because statins are such a commonly prescribed drug, oh well, I expect the G.P's phones will be ringing non stop now !

 

[Tia]

....and this is a good thing

.

 

[flyingfeet]

I think this is a good thing - it is possible to keep chickens in nice conditions and mass produce medications via eggs. Much better than the current production of PMU from horses!!

I'm afraid my father has cancer, I have asthma and my mother has high blood pressure. I'm all for any medical advances.

 

[weevil]

[ QUOTE ]
....and this is a good thing

.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think so, it is a way of manufacturing large quantities of drugs which will make them more accessible and cheaper which can only be a good thing.
Plus it won't do any real harm to the chickens and being kept for medical reasons they are likely to be kept in much nicer conditions then if they were just producing eggs for food.

 

[Tia]

[ QUOTE ]
Plus it won't do any real harm to the chickens

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, should have been more specific, I didn't really mean to those particular chickens......I mean't for humans and for nature.

 

[spaniel]

Im wary. In an ideal world without anti vivisectionists and those folks who like to go round 'liberating' animals into the wild Im sure its a good theory.

however you only need to have one escapee and it could all go horribly wrong.

I still get angry about oil seed rape and GM crops so a mutant chicken really does scare the heck out of me!

By all means work on eggs, standard eggs out of normal chickens, but to muck about with genes is, to me, going too far.

 

[weevil]

[ QUOTE ]
By all means work on eggs, standard eggs out of normal chickens, but to muck about with genes is, to me, going too far.

[/ QUOTE ]
But surely that is just what generations of selective breeding has done (mucking about with genes)?
I know it's not quite the same thing as GM chickens, but even if a "mutant" chicken did get out and people ate the eggs then it probably wouldn't do any harm. Once you cook an egg the proteins are denatured and then are digested in the stomach/GI tract so it really is just more protein.

 

[spaniel]

Its more the fact that these mutant genes could become assimilated into the wider chicken population that bothers me. Could these mutant genes then mutate again??

 

[sunflower]

They're not mutant genes as such - just inserted genes. Yes they could mutate - most genes do at some point but the majority of mutations are silent and even if this is not the case, chances are the protein will just be inactive or less active. As the protein is not one the chicken requires I can't really see any major effects on the chicken population. I also very much doubt that they would ever get permission to insert the genes for any proteins that may cause illness to humans if they accidentally eat the eggs.

 

[spaniel]

See you are using phrases like 'chances are', there is nothing definite in that sort of statement.

I know its hard to be 100% about anything but 'I very much doubt' isnt enough to convince me personally.

I suspect I need a lot more science based information to be able to see a rationale.

 

[weevil]

Fair enough. I haven't actually seen/read enough about this to know what safeguards they have in place. I suppose my initial reaction was that this is potentially a very good way to make these drugs more readily available which is a good thing as long as there are no risks to public safety. Other people will need to be convinced - I suppose it all comes down to how much you trust scientists

 

[flyingfeet]

Well I can understand the reservation with fields of crops, as the pollen is not containable.

However chances of a chicken escaping a enclosure, bar crazy animal activists, is actually highly unlikely.

GM is only accerlation of selective breeding, chances are a mutation would appear for whatever we are looking for at some point.

I am all for GM crops producing green fuels, polymers and other industrial crops. However a shame that the first GM trials were for herbicide resistance which was a stupid place to start. After all if this did transfer out of the GM crop it was going to produce a problem (i.e. weeds resistant to glyphosate, aka round up)

 

[sunflower]

Sorry for being vague. Yes, the 'chances are that even if the gene mutated it would not have any great effect' - lets assume that the gene inserted into the genome of the chicken mutates. The most common type of mutation is a point mutation and has 3 possible outcome - no change whatsoever (degenerate code etc), a missense mutation or a nonsense mutation. Nonsense mutations truncate the protein and it will most likely then be inactive, missense mutations may alter the activity slightly if they occur in major structural or active sites or may have no effect. Yes, point mutations can have dramatic effects - sickle cell amaemia being the one that springs to mind but the genes we are talking about in this case are not required by the chicken. Any alteration in the structure or function of the protein would be picked up in the processing and QC and would mean that eggs from that particular bird were no longer used. If this happened in an escaped chicken then so what? The protein is not going to be used anyway (unless it's a case of industrial espionage in which case I would hope they would have their own QC procedures) and if a gene mutation does have an adverse effect on the animal within the wider chicken population natural selection comes into play. No, I can't be sure that scientists wouldn't get permission to use genes for any protein that would cause harm to humans if accidentally ingested but I do know how tightly regulated genetic research is in this country. Also one of the biggest problems with using large protein structures as drugs is ensuring they get to their target without being digested or broken down by the body (hence why diabetics have to inject insulin rather then taking it orally).
Finally the chances of an escapee are so small (I'm not going to say impossible

) - unless of course they have some help from our friendly animal liberationists. However animal research facilities have such stringent security measures - and more so when GM is involved that even this is highly unlikely - after all the Roslin Institute managed to keep Dolly safely for ~6 years.