QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 'But Phillips worries about the impact of opponents of genetically engineered products: "There are forces out there that may make this a vestige, an antique." ' [item 2]
'It might be possible, for example, to genetically engineer chickens ... The Roslin says there would be little point in trying to do this, if no-one would want to eat the end result.' [item 1]
1. Dolly scientists fleeing GM food research
2. California Biotech Researchers Hope to Discourage Government Interference
3. United Grain, Monsanto in swine genetics deal
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1. Dolly scientists fleeing GM food research
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1560000/1560870.stm
Monday, 24 September, 2001, 16:34 GMT 17:34 UK
Dolly scientists target biomedical research [shortened]
By BBC News Online's Helen Briggs
Dolly the sheep might never have been created if current attitudes to genetically modified food had prevailed in the 1990s.
The pioneering Roslin Institute, which made the famous clone, says public hostility towards GM food in the UK has forced it to reassess its research goals.
It intends to focus on biomedical applications of cloning technology rather than pure agricultural research like that which led to Dolly.
"An institute likes ours can no longer sustain itself entirely on agricultural research," Professor Grahame Bulfield told BBC News Online.
"We have decided we need to build on our strengths by developing products for use in the biomedical industry," he added.
Political climate 'unfriendly'
The Roslin Institute, based near Edinburgh, sprang to fame in 1997 when it announced it had cloned Dolly.
It is now one of the world's leading centres for genetic research on farm animals.
However, agricultural research has fallen over the years and now comprises only 20% of its work, compared with 70% in the early 1990s.
The Roslin blames a dwindling agricultural research budget for its change in policy, as well as public and political attitudes to GM foods.
"The political climate in agriculture hasn't been particularly friendly," Professor Bulfield said. Instead, the Roslin will focus on biomedical research based on stem cells and nuclear transfer.
Divided values
Professor Bulfield believes the public is prepared to accept medical applications of such technology. "People will permit technology to be used in producing drugs that they would be uncomfortable being used in agriculture," he said.
It will mean that some potential applications of genetics in farming will not be pursued at present, by the Roslin at least.
It might be possible, for example, to genetically engineer chickens so that they do not carry food poisoning bugs like salmonella. The Roslin says there would be little point in trying to do this, if
no-one would want to eat the end result.
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2. California Biotech Researchers Hope to Discourage Government Interference
Knight Ridder/Tribune
Paul Jacobs
Monday -- September 24, 2001
http://www.agbios.com/_NewsItem.asp?parm=neIDXCode&data=2267
Sep. 23--TAHOE CITY, Calif.--One biotech company is harvesting spider silk, made not by spiders but by genetically engineered goats, part of an effort to create light, affordable fibers for surgical sutures or even bulletproof vests.
Other firms are collecting proteins from pig semen and chicken eggs that have been genetically engineered to produce human hormones for treating disease.
This is the world of transgenic animal research, in which genes taken from one species are spliced into the genetic machinery of another.
Two decades after the creation of the first transgenic animals, including oversized mice grown large by adding a human growth hormone gene, researchers say they are making real if fitful progress in advancing a technology that can cut the cost of biotech drugs, produce new industrial chemicals and change the nature of the food we eat.
More than 100 researchers from around the world gathered here recently to bring one another up to date on a field that has generated its share of controversy. Indeed, the conference, organized by gene researchers at University of California-Davis, seemed haunted by concern that critics, fearful consumers and government regulators might block the widespread application of the emerging technology.
"A whole generation could be lost -- 20 years of work,`` said James D. Murray, one of the meeting's organizers, a UC-Davis geneticist whose lab is working with transgenic goats and mice.
Without regulatory approval and public acceptance a new breed of low-polluting pigs might become just a footnote in scientific history, said one of the scientists who created the transgenic animal, John P. Phillips of the University of Guelph in Canada.
And despite early success in producing medically useful human proteins in goat milk, not one of these products has yet been approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration.
Still, these scientists are enthusiastic about the prospects for their field, which they say is beginning to emerge from a prolonged adolescence.
The researchers at this scientific meeting shared the spotlight with a cast of animals, including a rooster named Alphie and a hog named Wayne, all of them carrying genes from other species.
A gene is a length of DNA that carries the information that cells need to produce one or more proteins. Because the language of DNA is spelled out in a universal alphabet -- the As, Ts, Cs and Gs of the genetic code -- a gene plucked from one species can be deciphered by the internal machinery of another. This laboratory manipulation has been used to produce human insulin in bacteria, natural insecticides in plants and a variety of commercially useful proteins in cattle.
For years now, scientists have been studying the amazing properties of spider silk -- among the strongest natural materials known. These are the threads that allow spiders to drop down from the ceiling or weave webs with the elasticity and strength needed to trap large insects.
Now researchers at Nexia Biotechnologies near Montreal have successfully produced spider silk proteins in cow mammary cells and spun them into fibers, said Nexia`s vice president for research, Costas N. Karatzas. The silk protein is finer than a human hair, but strong enough to be used as sutures or fishing line, Karatzas said. And the U.S. Army is funding research in the use of these ultralight fibers in protective vests.
To commercialize what the company calls Biosteel, Nexia has turned to genetically engineered goats transformed by spider silk genes from researcher Randy Lewis at the University of Wyoming. "The economics depend on large-scale production,`` Karatzas said.
That is why a number of firms are turning to transgenic animals capable of producing large amounts of foreign proteins for commercial use. Another Canadian company, TGN Biotech in Quebec, is producing human proteins in hog semen.
Unlike humans, hogs produce large quantities of semen -- up to a pint daily of a fluid rich in chemicals that protect sperm and prevent the breakdown of proteins.
While several companies are already producing useful human proteins in animal milk, there are many hormones and enzymes that can`t be produced that way because they are too delicate to survive in milk or because they cause health problems in the animals, said Dr. Marc-Andre Sirard, vice president of research at TGN. Hog semen provides an alternative. The biotech industry produces its drugs in genetically engineered bacteria, yeast and animal cells that are grown under controlled conditions in large vats similar to those used in a brewery.
Sirard said that these companies do not have the production capacity that will soon be needed for all the biological drugs now being tested in patients.
And that provides an opportunity for companies like TGN that believe they can produce many of those same products in animals at competitive prices.
It takes less than two years to produce 250 transgenic pigs capable of producing active proteins in their semen, Sirard said. And that herd would be large enough to satisfy the worldwide demand for a new pharmaceutical.
He said the company is producing three different drugs in pigs, generic versions of biological products already on the market. For competitive reasons, he said, he won`t name them.
"Our challenge in the next few years is to get people to understand and see the benefit of these technologies,`` Sirard said, referring to animal rights activists who object to these genetic manipulations. ``In our case, the animals won`t be hurt, they'll be treated like kings."
Chickens could become another source of human proteins. At the conference, scientists from AviGenics in Georgia reported that they have successfully produced human alpha interferon in egg white, which they say is the first biologically active human hormone produced in an egg. Interferon is widely used in the treatment of cancer and viral diseases.
The genetically engineered rooster that produced the laying hens -- the founder of the flock -- is called "Alphie."
The company has no plans to market interferon, but wanted to demonstrate the technology to potential customers, said AviGenics chief executive Carl E. Marhaver. The aim of the company is to create flocks that can become ``a reliable drug production factory,`` he said. A single hen lays 250 eggs a year. A flock of several thousand chickens could provide over 200 pounds of a biological drug, enough to treat hundreds of thousands of patients.
There are other reasons to apply genetically engineering to animals.
At the University of Guelph, Phillips and his colleagues have successfully engineered low-pollution pigs -- creating several animals, including ``Wayne,`` who was named for hockey great Wayne Gretzky.
Pigs are unable to digest much of the phosphorous locked into grains and farmers must add phosphorous to the animals` feed. But a bigger issue is that pig manure is rich in phosphates, an environmental pollutant that creates ``a chronic problem everywhere there is animal agriculture,`` Phillips said.
To solve the problem, Guelph researchers engineered pigs that produce a bacterial enzyme in the animals' salivary glands, which can digest the phosphorous. The amount of phosphate in the manure of these animals is sharply reduced.
Whether or not regulators will approve the meat from these animals for human consumption is still undecided; safety tests are continuing. But Phillips worries about the impact of opponents of genetically engineered products: "There are forces out there that may make this a vestige, an antique."
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3. United Grain, Monsanto in swine genetics deal
Reuters
September 24, 2001
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - United Grain Growers Limited, one of Canada's largest agribusiness firms, said last week it has agreed to sell some assets of its swine genetics franchise, Unipork Genetics, to U.S. life sciences giant Monsanto Company. "We're selling the trademarks. We're selling back the franchise to produce and market the breeding stock exclusively," said Bill McGill, UGG's livestock services managing director. "We are also selling the inventory of top of the pyramid breeding stock," McGill told Reuters in a telephone interview from Alberta.
A statement by UGG said it had signed a nonbinding letter of intent with St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto, a biotechnology giant widely known for producing genetically modified crop varieties. Financial terms were not disclosed. UGG entered the swine breeding stock business in 1994 when it bought an exclusive western Canada franchise license from DeKalb Choice Genetics, now a subsidiary of Monsanto. Unipork Genetics operates a breeding program for female and male JSR Healthbred breeding stocks that are sold to commercial hog producers. Annual sales of the UGG business unit run about C$10 million, McGill said.
"We just feel that together with DeKalb that there's an opportunity to more efficiently serve the long-term needs of business and maximize the technical opportunities in the breeding stock business by selling this franchise back to DeKalb and having them responsible for the marketing in the area," said McGill. While UGG officials would not disclose the financial terms of the proposed sale, they stated last week that UGG planned to retain a close working relationship with the new owners, including links with UGG's feed business.
DeKalb Choice Genetics is headquartered in St. Louis. UGG shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange last week were off 20 Canadian cents at C$10.10. The Winnipeg-based grain and livestock company on Thursday reported fourth- quarter net income of C$11.1 million, or 64 Canadian cents a share, after unusual items.