- Chickens have been genetically engineered to lay eggs
that have whites containing expensive human drugs.
- An American company announced yesterday that it has made
an active foreign enzyme in eggs, providing the first real evidence that
GM chickens could be used to mass produce drugs.
- A team at Avigenics in Georgia inserted a bacterial gene
responsible for a protein enzyme into chicken embryos, which as adults
laid eggs containing the enzyme.
- The levels of the protein in fresh eggs remained constant
for months, and the researchers plan to develop more robust methods of
introducing foreign DNA into chickens to increase the amount of protein
- The company estimates that a single hen could make up
to four grams of a human protein such as insulin or growth hormone.