April 29, 2013

Genetic engineering makes world's first disease-resistant pig a reality

Born at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh where Dolly the sheep was created in 1996, the piglet created using 'gene editing' - only known by the moniker Pig 26 - could change the public's perception on genetically-modified livestock.

Scientists say this method does not rely on the elaborate cloning process as previous techniques did, does not use antibiotic resistant 'markers', and can be performed on fertilised eggs rather than ordinary tissue cells.

Professor Bruce Whitelaw of the Roslin Institute said that the technique allowed them to produce GM animals with an efficiency of 10-15% compared to just 1% for the standard method of genetic engineering.

The new technique does not leave any trace on the animals' genome other than the desired mutation; it merely mimics the natural evolutionary process but uses a man-made genome editor.

The gene editing technique is at least 100 times more precise and efficient than existing GM technology, the researchers said, and does not make use of heavily criticised antibiotic-resistant genes.

Much of the furore over the previous technique was caused by fears that in making the livestock immune to antibiotics, drugs regularly used to combat fatal diseases would be rendered ineffective.

Pig 26 was born last August and has been genetically engineered with "the smallest of DNA mutations".