Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Scientists have been trying to find good ways to turn animals into factories
An article on CNet (from which the title of this post is derived) discusses a project by a British team (the team responsible for Dolly the sheep) to grow proteins in Chickens that can be used in the development of cancer drugs. The process, like much transgenic engineering, uses a virus to insert novel genetic material into the chickens' DNA. This use of viruses as a vector for transmitting genetic material was the subject of early heated debates (such as the Asilomar Conference of 1975) about the safety and regulation of transgenic practices. Those concerns have not necessarily disappeared, and some scientists are still calling for a moratorium on such human-nonhuman transgenic processes, citing the risk of new and unstable viruses that could cross species boundaries more quickly. Critics also argue that money could be better spent on other methods of healing that are safer, more effective and accessible to more people.
Chickens engineered to make cancer drugs | CNET News.com
technorati tags:biotech, transgenics, corporate, drugs, chickens, genomics, medicine
Archives
June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007
