io9: gmo

Goats Genetically Engineered to Produce Drugs in Their Milk

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:00:00 PST

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Adminstration stopped dragging its feet and acknowledged that tomorrow's drugs are just as likely to be made in the bosoms of goats as they are to come out of a laboratory. The latest craze among drug makers is "pharming," or the practice of creating special, genetically-engineered animals that literally exude drugs. In the case of the drug approved on Friday, ATryn, this means creating GMO goats that manufacture a crucial protein for use in the drug. These goats are the first "pharm animals" that have been approved for drug manufacture in America, though they have been used in Europe for at least two years.

A Massachusetts company called GTC Therapeutics manufactures ATryn, which is designed to help people with blood-clotting disorders. Though ATryn is unlikely to become a blockbuster drug, since it aids only a small part of the population, its approval opens the door for more pharmed drugs to hit the market. But why genetically engineer a herd of goats instead of just making drugs the old-fashioned way?

According to the New York Times:

Proponents say such "pharm animals" could become a means of producing biotechnology drugs at lower cost or in greater quantities than the existing methods - which include extracting proteins from donated human blood or growing them in large steel vats of genetically engineered cells.

The protein in the goat milk, antithrombin, is sometimes in short supply or unavailable for pharmaceutical use because of a shortage of human plasma donations. GTC Biotherapeutics said one of its goats can produce as much antithrombin in a year as can be derived from 90,000 blood donations. And if more drug is needed, the herd can be expanded.

More pharmed drugs are already in production, including a cure for hereditary angioedema (a disorder that causes tissue swelling) produced in the milk of GMO rabbits.

SOURCES:

The Great Beyond [blog for Nature journal]

New York Times

Genetically-Engineered Cows Produce 20% More Milk

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:40:28 PST

In a few years, dairy farmers will be able to order special genetically-modified cows that produce 20% more milk than common cows. Researchers in Argentina have developed a strain of cow that produces extra bovine growth hormone, which apparently leads to the greater milk production. [via SciDevNet]

Genetically-Engineered Purple Tomatoes Boost Health

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:30:00 PDT

This gorgeous, genetically-engineered tomato gets its deep purple color from Snapdragon flower genes. But European researchers didn't just splice those genes into the tomato for aesthetic reasons. In a recent issue of Nature, the researchers write that Snapdragon transgenes also boosted the tomato's natural anthocyanin levels by threefold, which means the fruit now has the antioxidant properties of a blackberry or blueberry. Cancer-susceptible mice eating the purple transgenic tomatoes had far longer lifespans than those who didn't. [via The Biotech Weblog]

It's a GMO Holiday With Glowing Red Kitty, Glowing Green Bunny

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:00:01 PST

Just hold 'em under fluorescent bulbs, and they're like living, purring holiday lights! A Korean team of genetic engineers has created a super race of glowing red kitties. What everyone seems to have forgotten is that several years ago, bio-artist Eduardo Kac had some French engineers build him a glowing green bunny.

Same technique: just add a gene (from jellyfish) for fluorescence to your favorite cuddy creature of choice and presto! Instant cute glowingness. And no, despite what the researchers say, there really isn't any good "medical" or "scientific" reason for doing this. It just looks cool. Photos via Eduardo Kac and AFP.

GMO Eggplants With Built-in Pesticide

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:48:25 PDT

Eggplant has always had a dodgy reputation, and some Cornell researchers working with India's Sathguru Management Consultants have just made the plump purple fruit even weirder. They've rigged the eggplant genome to express a "natural insecticide" that will drive away pesky fruit and shoot borers, bugs which routinely ravage crops throughout India, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. The bug-killing eggplants are called Bt eggplants because their new insecticide-producing powers come from the spliced-in genes of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. Bt eggplants will likely hit your tastebuds in 2009, and are the first GMO to come to Southeast Asia. Are they safe? Cornell reports:

All the safety tests for the Bt eggplant have been conducted in India, starting in greenhouses and now moving to large-scale field trials. The eggplant has been found to be nontoxic to fish, chickens, rabbits, goats, rats and cattle as well as nonallergenic. Ongoing tests will examine such questions as whether the plant will continue to resist [fruit and shoot borers] in the field and for how long; whether the Bt eggplant cross pollinates with other eggplants in the field and how far the Bt plants should be from other eggplant fields; whether nontarget insect populations are affected in the long term; and how yields compare with those of other eggplant varieties.

I'm not an anti-GMO kind of person, and I know that there already exist fruits and vegetables that have naturally evolved their own insecticides in the wild. But I gotta say that the GMO industry really needs to figure out a better way to explain what it's doing because nobody is going to want to eat eggplant curry if they think it's full of bug-killing bacteria. Photo by Miss Karen.

Cornell develops pest-resistant eggplant