Transgenic future: goats instead of women

This morning "Farmvestnik" pleased its readers with good news: The FDA has approved the drug Atryn by GTC Biotherapeutics Inc.., produced on the basis of human protein produced by transgenic goats with milk. The drug is designed to prevent the formation of blood clots in patients with genetic deficiency of antithrombin ... annual sales of the drug in the United States in the first 5 years will amount to 40-50 million US dollars ... the drug will be available to doctors and patients starting from the second quarter of this year. The drug has already been approved in Europe...

And yesterday a similar news was printed by MK. Only at the same time loudly spoiled the mood of the air.
Thirdly, the literacy of the correspondent who was sent to interview about transgenic Russian-Belarusian goats, which give not only eggs, but also milk.
Secondly, the fact that we are 15 years behind the whole planet in the field of genetic engineering.
And first of all - a bastard title:

GOATS WILL REPLACE WOMEN FOR PEOPLE
Scientists will force them to give human milk
Natalia Vedeneeva

Sensational news came from the Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

(And what is the sensation here? This project has been constantly being written about for several years, and a sensation is always something unexpected.)

The first hundred Russian goats in the Shakhovsky district of the Moscow region were inseminated with the sperm of genetically modified Belarusian goats! The very ones in whose genome there is ... a human gene ("MK” told about it in December 2007). Usually in a woman's milk, it provides the presence of the bactericidal protein lactoferrin. Now scientists hope that this “milk” gene will pass from goats to goats, which will then give out tons of women's milk.

(I don't remember exactly what kind of egg-bearing milk yield goats have, but according to the context - every goat every day)

The details of the birth of the humanized herd of goats “MK” were told by the staff of the IBG RAS.

(Employee and?) More than one? Are these the ones on the photo? Or is the one on the left a reporter? It looks like the latter...)

– We started the work with laboratory mice, – says Elena SADCHIKOVA, head of the transgenesis laboratory. – For several years, they were injected with various gene constructs with the human lactoferrin gene.

(This slang is understandable to a molbiologist, and most MK readers will clearly imagine such complex structures on M50 bolts)

The result exceeded all expectations. First there were mice whose milk contained grams of human lactoferrin, then dozens of grams, and one record–breaking mouse gave as much as 160 grams of lactoferrin in terms of one liter of milk. For comparison: in one liter of female milk there are only 5 grams of a valuable component. Then scientists needed thousands more mice in order to study the transmission of the gene and the production of human lactoferrin in a number of animal generations. The protein from the milk of mice fully corresponded to the lactoferrin of women's milk – it was possible to move on to larger animals.

As already reported by MK, two goats Lak-1 and Lak-2 were born at the end of 2007 in the Belarusian city of Zhodino thanks to special gene designs made in Moscow.

(Exactly – on bolts and rivets!)

They turned out to be the only ones out of 30 in whose genome the human lactoferrin gene migrated – a unique component, thanks to which mother's milk is famous for its protective and restorative properties. At the end of last year, when Lucky found a real goat's strength, their sperm was immediately put into action.

(Well, he won't say a word in simplicity!)

On the very eve of the New Year, a hundred Belarusian goats were seeded with it, and the remaining portion was brought to Russia in the first days of January, to the farm of a private farmer from the Shakhovsky district of the Moscow region, Yuri Priezentsev.

(Transferring from "Inopressa" the translation of a note about humanized goats from the Daily Mail, telegraf.by without flinching a single convolution, he repeated the stupid postscript "on a SECRET farm", without the full name of the owner.
And in all reprints of the article from MK in the domain .ua added to the idiotic title – ushi yak azin – "In RUSSIA, goats will replace women for people."
Ugh, we are Scythians!):

There are 250 goats in his farm, 90 of them were given by the farmer for experimental insemination. Now Privezentsev is the main caretaker for these goats. In order not to confuse them with the usual ones, they were marked with blue crosses. Geneticists are frequent guests at the peasant farmstead. After all, the “crusader” goats are now worth their weight in gold, they need an eye and an eye - so that they don't get sick and are kept in good conditions.

– Well, how soon will we get miracle milk from them? I ask Sadchikova.

(flapping his big blue eyes on a small head with a narrow forehead, in which no more than half of a simple thought fits at a time.)

– We won't get milk from them yet. The pregnancy of these goats will last 5 months. Somewhere in June-July we will get a litter with the established lactoferrin gene. And when the new goats (the daughters of Laka-1 and Laka-2) grow up and give birth to offspring, they will hopefully have milk with lactoferrin. In general, this will not happen until the middle of next year. This is how a long tale about a white goat turns out.

(I wonder if this girl is really so naive or does she think readers are idiots and asks an idiotic question specifically for them?)

Naturally, in order to preserve such an expensive protein in goat's milk later, it cannot be subjected to heat treatment. But then how to disinfect?

(Natural disinfected milk? I drink pasteurized, without disinfectants...)

– Milk with lactoferrin – let me remind you, there is no such thing anywhere else in the world – we will be subjected to ultrafiltration, as is done in all civilized countries.

(The Savetskys have their own pride! And what about lactoferrin goats, cows, etc. in different civilized countries – not one herd, the teacher does not know?)

This is a system that includes filters that keep microbes out by passing useful proteins into the product.

(Was he completely drunk, and was he leaning on the joystick so as not to fall? Why make a person look like an idiot for the sake of a red word? And, by the way, there are two types of bosses in Korea: the Beloved and the Most Beloved. Korean teachers even managed to trace an egg individually fertilized by their Beloved Leader, although in the rest of the world they are injected into mice 10 pieces at once. And report back To the Chief Senator, standing at attention and exaggerating his achievement by a couple of orders of magnitude.)

Geneticists milk mice like cows, only milking machines are much smaller in size.

(Thanks for explaining. And then I thought – ordinary, cow. Or manually. And not with a pipette, but pulling with his fists for mouse tits.)

In the future, it will be possible to make cottage cheese, cheeses, and ice cream from goat's milk with lactoferrin. In the meantime, the inseminated ancestors of the lactoferrin herd in Shakhovsky are waiting for their “milk” offspring.

(This is unlikely. Baby food – maybe, but first – drugs for the treatment of various diseases. And, alas, not very soon. In 15 years, if everything goes like clockwork. And cottage cheese and other heat-treated products will not be curative: the proteins in them will curdle.) 

Since yesterday, I have specifically visited the MK website several times to admire how their admins are feverishly cleaning out comments to this article. It seems that there are about ten percent – the dumbest. Sometimes it was possible to see pre-moderated kaments like mine or too smart, but they soon disappear.

These are our articles about science, and in fact this one is far from the worst. There are also much stupider ones ):

A Healthy Skeptic
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru 11.02.2009