EDITOR'S BLOG
Chicken
… And sticking with cost, the same report stated the cost of producing proteins using transgenic hens eggs is even lower, ranging between $0.1 and $0.25 per gramme.
The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh – responsible for the iconic cloned sheep Dolly - produces a range of transgenic chicken eggs for expressing proteins, including interferon beta 1-a and the monoclonal antibody miR-24.
The Institute uses viral vectors derived from the lentivirus equine infectious anaemia virus to insert genes for the desired pharmaceutical proteins into the chicken gene for ovalbumin, which makes up 54% of egg white.
