Scientists create anti-cancer chicken eggs

[SLCPUNK]

The researchers behind the first cloned sheep said they have developed genetically modified chickens that can lay eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs.

The Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh in Scotland, said it has produced five generations of birds capable of producing useful levels of life-saving proteins in egg whites.

The director of the institute, which cloned Dolly the sheep, told the BBC that the work could lead to cheaper and more readily available drugs.

The findings will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"One of the characteristics of lots of medical treatments these days is that they're very expensive," said Prof. Harry Griffin.

"The idea of producing the proteins involved in treatments in flocks of laying hens means they can produce in bulk, they can produce cheaply, and indeed the raw material for this production system is quite literally chicken feed."

The institute told the BBC it has bred about 500 modified birds. Some have been engineered to lay eggs containing miR24, an antibody with potential for treating melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

Others lay eggs containing human interferon b1a, which can be used to stop the replication of viruses. The proteins are found in egg whites.

The scientists at Roslin cautioned it would be another five years before patient trials are approved and another 10 years before medicine is developed.

[GNRreunioneventually]

sweet

heres to NOT having cancer

[Axlfreek]

this sounds like the begining of a really cool horror movie for some reason 

[Prometheus]

oh i know... i cant wait for the chicken people st start tring to take over teh world... but make em half zombie like... and we can start the movie in london.... in a hospital..... lol............

[GNRreunioneventually]

this sounds like the begining of a really cool horror movie for some reason?

yeah it dose lol 

[Axl4Prez2004]

oh i know... i cant wait for the chicken people st start tring to take over teh world... but make em half zombie like... and we can start the movie in london.... in a hospital..... lol............

Maybe Buckethead will be their leader.   

[mrlee]

the eggs turn people into zombies lol

[Axl4Prez2004]

Boy oh boy, when will scientists learn to stop playing God!  If anti-cancer treatments were meant to come from eggs, he would have created eggs with anti-cancer treatments already in them!!!  It's the work of the devil I tell you!!!  All ye be warned!!!