Do you know type 1 diabetes? Due to a failure of the pancreas that no longer produces insulin, people affected by this chronic disease suffer from hyperglycemia, or very high blood sugar levels. Insulin, which they must inject, is a hormone that is not always easy to access in some corners of the world.
A team of scientists may have found a solution. An article on the website Futurism explains how researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of São Paulo in Brazil (among others) genetically modified cows with human DNA to make them produce insulin in their milk.
“Nature designed the mammary gland to be a factory to make proteins very efficiently. We can take advantage of this system to produce proteins that can help millions of people around the world.”says Matthew Wheeler, a professor of animal science at the University of Illinois and lead author of a study published March 12 in the scientific journal Biotechnology.
To achieve this little maneuver that will spice up your bowl of cereal, the researchers inserted a piece of human DNA associated with the formation of insulin into the cell nuclei of ten cow fetuses. One of these embryos resulted in a female calf, which, once old enough, was fertilized and stimulated to produce milk.
Even better than expected
The scientists’ goal was to produce proinsulin for cows, a prohormone that they only had to purify to get the final result. He did not expect that even cattle would produce insulin in their milk.
Matthew Wheeler states: “Our goal was to produce proinsulin, purify it into insulin, and do it that way. But Guy somehow changed himself. It produces about three times more biologically active insulin than proinsulin.” Apparently impressed by such a discovery, he adds: “Mammary gland is something magical.” And we can’t blame him.
The strangest part of this story is that this single genetically modified cow produces the equivalent of one gram of insulin per liter of milk, while the dose required for a patient is a fraction of a milligram. “This means that each gram is equivalent to 28,818 units of insulinMatthew Wheeler explains. And this concerns only one liter, knowing that Holstein cows can produce fifty liters per day. You can do the math.”
“I envision a future where a herd of a hundred head equivalent to a small dairy in Illinois or Wisconsin can produce all the insulin the country needs.The researcher concludes. What about the big crowd? You can supply the whole world in a year.” In the meantime, the Brazilian-American team of scientists may try the experiment again, hoping to produce a genetically modified male calf, to see if its offspring will also produce insulin.
