Designer chickens can make anti-cancer protein in eggs

Jul 4, 2005, 3:11 GMT

London - The institute that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, has announced that a multinational project to make commercial quantities of anti-cancer protein through "designer chickens" could soon succeed.

"We have long believed that this joint effort would develop an avian system capable of efficiently and economically producing human biopharmaceuticals," said Helen Sang, a scientist at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh.

The researchers behind the Avian Transgenic Manufacturing project - a joint venture between the U.S. company Viragen Inc, the British company Oxford BioMedica and the Roslin Institute - said large quantities of an anti-cancer protein had been obtained from the whites of eggs laid by a genetically modified hen.

This opened up the prospect of commercial exploitation, by contrast with previous results where the quantities were too small, Sang said.

Proponents believe this will allow drugs to be made at a much lower cost that currently.

Cloning knowledge from Roslin was used to breed identical copies of genetically modified chickens producing a protein that was a version of a Viragen malignant skin cancer medication.

Oxford BioMedica produced the modified hens required.

The team had earlier created chickens whose flesh produced a particular protein, but the new process concentrates the protein in the egg white, increasing output.

"Viragen is not the only company that has been trying to use chicken eggs as drug factories, but what has been achieved here is getting specific delivery of this protein into the eggs at a level that is pretty nearly commercially viable," Oxford BioMedica boss Alan Kingsman said.

Viragen President Charles Rice said the biopharmaceutical drug market would have a turnover of 50 billion dollars by 2010, and antibodies would provide 17 billion dollars in sales.

Other companies have made proteins for use in treating illnesses, but these projects have yet to show commercial viability.