Hens that lay human proteins in eggs may help in future drug production
Chickens that have been genetically modified to produce human proteins in eggs can offer a cost-effective method of producing certain types of drugs. The study which initially focused on producing high quality proteins for use in scientific research, found the drugs work at least as well as the same proteins produced using existing methods. The study was carried out at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute and Roslin Technologies, a company set up to commercialise research at The Roslin Institute and is published in BMC Biotechnology. High quantities of the proteins can be recovered from each egg using a simple purification system and there are no adverse effects on the chickens themselves, which lay eggs as normal. According to researchers, the findings provide sound evidence for using chickens as a cheap method of producing high quality drugs for use in research studies and, potentially one day, in patients. Notably, eggs are already used for growing vi