2. THE IDEA
• The idea is to breed chickens to produce drugs
• The drugs will be in the egg whites of the eggs
• People will be able to eat the egg whites to cure/help whatever illness they
have that the drug is for
3. SO FAR…
• They understand how to execute this plan
• They have done enough testing and experimenting to start breeding the
chickens
• Researchers in Scotland have successfully bread 5 generations of
transgenic hens that produce therapeutic proteins in their egg whites
4. HOW THEY DO IT:
The researchers used viral vectors
• They got this from the lentivirus equine infectious anemia (EIAV)
• They then insert the gene for the pharmaceutical protein of interest
into the chicken gene for ovalbumin
• This makes up 54% of the egg white
5. OVALBUMIN
• Ovalbumin is the main albumin from the whites of an egg
• Albumin is a form of protein found in egg whites & milk
6. TECHNIQUE
• They use viral vectors to insert the gene of a specific pharmaceutical
protein
• They insert it into the chicken gene for ovalbumin because it makes up so
much of the egg white so that the drug will then be produced in the egg
whites.
7. POSITIVE REPERCUSSIONS?
• They have already bread chickens containing the drugs with positive
outcomes
• The have successfully produced transgenic hens containing:
• “Humanised monoclonal antibody (miR24)-treatment for malignant
melanoma”
AND…
• “Interferon beta-1a-treatment for multiple sclerosis
