Posted on 10/29/2005 7:14:22 AM PDT by blues_guitarist
The long-term threat of an avian flu pandemic could be greatly reduced by a project to produce genetically modified chickens that can resist lethal strains of the virus.
British scientists are genetically engineering chickens to protect them against the H5N1 virus that has devastated poultry farms in the Far East, with a view to replacing stocks with birds that are not susceptible to influenza.
The technique should also offer protection against many other strains of flu with the potential to start a human pandemic, such as the H7 subgroup that was responsible for an outbreak in Dutch poultry in 2003.
If chicken populations were to be replaced with transgenic birds that were resistant to flu, it would remove a reservoir of the virus and make it much harder for it to spread to humans and trigger a pandemic.
The team, led by Laurence Tiley, Professor of Molecular Virology at Cambridge University, and Helen Sang, of the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, has already shown that chicken cells can be protected against flu by inserting small pieces of genetic material.
The researchers are now ready to begin a similar procedure with eggs and the first experiments are expected within weeks. Any breakthrough, however, will come too late to have an impact on the present outbreak of H5N1.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Down on the farm...
Given the fanatical fear of anything GM (Genetically Modified) in the UK, even if these transgenic birds resistant to flu do come about, no Brit will buy them!
I can't remember the series title, (it probably lasted 6-10 weeks and was gone by Thanksgiving). I've checked IMDB and under Chicken Man got a link to Wade Boggs? Any help out there?
Somehow a picture of Joann Worley seems appropriate here.
LOL... actually, based on an article I posted yesterday, most prefer Japanese cars... :-)
We've genetically selected chickens for thousands of years (mostly by accident I imagine.)
So what's wrong with genetically selecting them now (directly and on purpose.)
It would take alot of eggs, however, to replace the entire poultry stock in the world, not to mention the 1,000's of different sub-breeds that exist.
And thanks to Hillary Clinton for the federal vaccine program "for the children" that stopped research, drove most of the US vaccine makers out of business so we only have 3 left.
Just what we need. A pandemic of Mad Chicken disease.
Here one robbing a gas station for beer.
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