Growing Insulin

McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail reports that a Calgary biotech firm has developed a process to turn genetically modified safflower oil into human insulin in commercial quantities. The process reduces capital costs by 70% and product cost by 40%. 'SemBioSys says it can make more than one kilogram of human insulin per acre of safflower production. That amount could treat 2,500 diabetic patients for one year and, in turn, meet the world's total projected insulin demand in 2010 with less than 16,000 acres of safflower production.'"

Comments

could someone do back-of-envelope calculation

[rubycodez]

on how many diabetics are *produced* from an acre of sugar cane or corn used to make corn syrup. Just so we can see if it all balances out.....

Let me be the first..

[Brickwall]

As a type II, non-insulin dependent (yet) diabetic, I for one welcome our new safflower overlords.

Now if they could only...

[mbstone]

...implant the insulin-producing gene into Cannabis sativa L., there would be a product. Can I have some ice cream?