The Roslin Institute modified the chickens with human genes enabling the birds to lay eggs that can produce anti-cancer drugs. The Institute said the drugs were contained within the egg whites laid by the chickens. The egg whites were engineered to contain proteins. The proteins that were chosen were a monoclonal antibody miR24, with the potential for treating melanoma and human interferon b-1a, an immune system protein that attacks tumors and viruses.
The main advantage of developing drugs this way will be to provide cheap cancer drugs compared to the cost of these treatments today. The birds will be able to be produced on a large scale and the research center has already created over 500 modified birds.
“Once you’ve made the transgenic birds, then it’s very easy; once you’ve got the gene in, then you can breed up hundreds of birds from one cockerel – because they can be bred with hundreds of hens and you can collect an egg a day and have hundreds of chicks in no time,” commented Dr Helen Sang of the Roslin Institue.
The researchers believe that the process could lead to drugs for Parkinson’s disease and diabetes as well as cancer. The Institute collaborated with Oxford Biomedica and Viragen on the project.