GM Yeast Produces Human Protein

Makarand writes "A team of US scientists has been able to genetically modify yeast to produce fully human protein. Human protein chains have specific groups of sugars attached which determine how these proteins will fold and function. The process of attaching these sugars to the protein, called glycoslylation, which has always evaded researchers can now be been carried out in the labaratory using genetically modified yeast. The team removed the yeast's genes that added sugars to the protein in a 'non-human' way and added five new genes to the yeast to add the sugars required by the human protein to fold and function."

Comments

DNA huggers

[amcnabb]

A lot of people seem to think that anything genetically engineered is automatically bad. Obviously we need to be careful when it comes to ecosystems, etc., but the DNA-huggers don't see many of the wonderful things that can come through genetic engineering. The advance described in this article is really amazing.

Any treatments that involve human proteins will be benefited by this technique, including antibodies and hormones, as mentioned in the article.

Science can't solve all problems, but it's always exciting to see advances like this which will make a big difference in real people's lives.