GM Re-Engineered Chicken

[Unbreakable]

But what if there were a way to breed poultry that are genetically resistant to H5N1 or any other avian flu virus, thus severing a major link in the flu's evolutionary chain? That's what a team of scientists in Britain tried to do recently, and they were remarkably successful. The result, reported in a study in the Jan. 13 issue of Science, is genetically engineered chickens that, while they're still vulnerable to H5N1, don't seem to pass on the disease to other poultry. That's exciting news for chicken farmers who are trying to protect their flocks from a deadly virus, but it could also open the door to genetically engineering disease resistance into a host of other animals. "Genetic modification could be more effective than vaccination," says Helen Sang, a geneticist at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh and a co-author of the Science paper. "You wouldn't need to change the way you tackle each disease."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2042381,00.html#ixzz1B3p9n7VD

GM comes to save the day.....

 

[Feste]

I want my dino-chicken.

http://www.physorg.com/news170426405.html

 

[amanda_eats_pandas]

My only concern with genetically modifying chickens to be resistant to avian flu is the effect it will have on the virus itself. It has the potential to have the same outcome as using vaccines and creating drug resistant versions, I would like more information about how they see the genetic modification having less of this outcome.

On the topic of genetically modified livestock, researchers in Canada are hoping to get genetically modified pigs approved. These modified pigs have are altered in the way they process phosphates making them cheaper to feed and supposedly better for the environment (that is of course debatable).

Link: Genetically modified pigs.

 

[Gup]

On the topic of genetically modified livestock, researchers in Canada are hoping to get genetically modified pigs approved. These modified pigs have are altered in the way they process phosphates making them cheaper to feed and supposedly better for the environment (that is of course debatable).

Link: Genetically modified pigs.

BBC link is pretty dumbed down. If you have a subscription, original paper from 2001:
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v19/n8/abs/nbt0801_741.html

Phytase-producing pigs were a really good idea ("We show here that salivary phytase provides essentially complete digestion of dietary phytate phosphorus, relieves the requirement for inorganic phosphate supplements, and reduces fecal phosphorus output by up to 75%.").

Too bad it ran into a buzzsaw of opposition. The creators were a bunch of university scientists, so there's no way they would have had the lobbying clout and money to overcome it.