New Chicken Eggs Crucial to Making Human Drugs

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Scotland is boasting the world’s first breed of chicken genetically altered to lay eggs that can be used to make life-saving drugs.

Researchers at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh said they created a 500-bird flock, offering the prospect of mass-producing drugs at a fraction of the annual per patient cost currently paid by the National Health Service, the Sunday Times of London said.

Researchers added human genes to the DNA of ISA Brown hens, enabling them to produce complex proteins. These human proteins are secreted into the whites of the birds’ eggs, from which they can be extracted to produce drugs.

Roslin scientists achieved a world-first in creating birds that "breed true," meaning added human genes are passed from generation to generation, observers said. This opens the door for creating a potentially limitless, inexpensive source of medicinal proteins.

"This is potentially a very powerful new way to produce specialized drugs," said Dr Karen Jervis of Viragen Scotland, a biotech company working with Roslin. "We have bred five generations of chickens so far and they all keep producing high concentrations of pharmaceuticals."

The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.