Scientists who cloned Dolly the Sheep have created designer chickens whose eggs may help produce drugs to fight cancer. They have altered the hens' genetic make-up so the whites of their eggs are rich in tailored proteins which will form the basis of new drugs that could be commercially available within two years, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Proteins in egg-white are produced according to instructions encoded in the hen's genes. Altering the genetic material in a single cell nucleus can breed a chicken, which will lay eggs full of the right proteins. The newspaper reports that one of the genetically modified chickens, named Britney, will be unveiled by the Roslin Institute, which cloned Dolly, at Edinburgh Castle on Wednesday.
Each chicken should lay about 250 eggs a year producing huge quantities of the necessary proteins. Until now, producing even small quantities of usable proteins in the laboratory has proved difficult and expensive. This has hampered the development of new drugs to treat various illnesses including ovarian cancer and breast cancer. But each egg from Britney and the rest of the flock will contain 100mg or more of the proteins, which can be easily extracted, the Mail on Sunday reports.
Britney was developed over two years by US biotech company Viragen and the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, according to the newspaper. Last night a spokesman for Viragen refused to make any comment on the developments in advance of the official announcement. No one from the Roslin Institute was available for comment. The Roslin Institute achieved fame a few years ago when it announced the first successful cloning of an animal from an adult cell. Dolly the Sheep is genetically identical to the ewe from which she was cloned.
