Slashdot Mirror
Engineered Hens Lay Cancer-Fighting Eggs
celardore writes "Hens that lay eggs containing cancer-fighting proteins have been developed in Scotland. While not themselves cancer-antagonistic, the proteins can be used to create drugs that have cancer-fighting potential. The hens are, in effect, factories for cancer drugs. It is still unknown whether the resulting drugs would work in practice, and clinical trials are 5 years off. This research was conducted by the Roslin Institute, the ones responsible responsible for Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal."
I've never understood all the fuss about the chicken and egg problem - they both taste great.
For one thing, it's easier to keep egg whites contained.
You get a lot of egg white at once. Chickens lay lots of large eggs, and the ones allowed to grow up to be chickens lay lots more large eggs. Each egg contains more white than the average petri dish can hold.
It's also simpler to feed a chicken than to feed a petri dish.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
The problem with using a virus or phage system stems from the fact that these are prokaryote based systems. Many proteins need post-translational modifications such as cleavage, methylation, SUMOylation, etc. that only occur in eukaryotic systems such as man or chickens