Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts (25 page)

That all changed with ATryn … genetically engineered goats
: Information on antithrombin and ATryn is from many sources, including “Hereditary Antithrombin Deficiency,” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, accessed April 17, 2012,
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/hereditary-antithrombin-deficiency
; Jim Kling, “First US Approval for a Transgenic Animal Drug,”
Nature Biotechnology
27, no. 4 (2009): 302–304; “Summary Basis for Regulatory Action—ATryn,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, accessed February 4, 2009,
www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/ApprovedProducts/LicensedProductsBLAs/FractionatedPlasmaProducts/ucm134048.htm
; “FDA Approves Orphan Drug ATryn to Treat Rare Clotting Disorder,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, February 6, 2009,
www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2009/ucm109074.htm
; “ATryn® (Antithrombin [Recombinant]) Approved by the FDA,” GTC Biotherapeutics, February 6, 2009,
www.gtc-bio.com/pressreleases/pr020609.html
. You can download many of the regulatory documents, and much more information, at “ATryn,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, accessed April 17, 2012,
www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/ApprovedProducts/LicensedProductsBLAs/FractionatedPlasmaProducts/ucm134042.htm
.

To create its special herd
: The procedure GTC used to make its transgenic goats is recounted in many places, including Kling, “First US Approval for a Transgenic Animal Drug”; “How It Works,” GTC Therapeutics, accessed February 10, 2012,
www.gtc-bio.com/science.html
; and “Questions by Scientists,” GTC Therapeutics, accessed February 10, 2012,
www.gtc-bio.com/science/questions.html
.

ATryn hit the market
: Kling, “First US Approval for a Transgenic Animal Drug.”

“milking parlors” on GTC’s 300-acre farm
: “The GTC Biotherapeutics Production Facility,” GTC Biotherapeutics, accessed February 10, 2012,
www.gtc-bio.com/science/production.html
.

more than a kilogram
: “Questions by Scientists,” GTC Therapeutics.

Ruconest, a drug produced
: For more, see “Ruconest,” Pharming Group NV, accessed April 5, 2012,
www.pharming.com/index.php?act=prod
.

The EU approved
: Ibid.

Scientists have also created … on a protein
: C. L. Keefer, “Production of Bioproducts Through the Use of Transgenic Animal Models,”
Animal Reproduction Science
82–83 (2004): 5–12; Houdebine, “Production of Pharmaceutical Proteins by Transgenic Animals”; Dyck, “Making Recombinant Proteins in Animals”; James Murray, in discussion with author via telephone, February 29, 2012; and Murray, discussion, 2011.

The ailment’s global toll
: James D. Murray et al., “Current Status of Transgenic Animal Research for Human Health Applications,” in “24th Brazilian Embryo Technology Society (SBTE) Annual Meeting,” supplement 2,
Acta Scientiae Veterinariae
38 (2010): s627–32.

The evidence now suggests
: Dottie R. Brundige et al., “Lysozyme Transgenic Goats’ Milk Influences Gastrointestinal Morphology in Young Pigs,”
Journal of Nutrition
138 (2008): 921–26; Lene Schack-Nielson and Kim F. Michaelsen, “Advances in Our Understanding of the Biology of Human Milk and Its Effects on the Offspring,”
The Journal of Nutrition
137, no. 2 (2007): 503S–510S.

Some of these effects can last
: P. W. Howie et al., “Protective Effect of Breast Feeding Against Infection,”
BMJ
300 (January 6, 1990): 11–16.

One of the compounds
: Murray, discussion, 2011.

Lysozyme is naturally present … other animals
: Elizabeth A. Maga et al., “Consumption of Milk from Transgenic Goats Expressing the Human Lysozyme in the Mammary Gland Results in the Modulation of Intestinal Microflora,”
Transgenic Research
15 (2006): 515–19.

Infant formula, which is usually
: Elizabeth Maga, in discussion with author via telephone, April 16, 2012; Clifford W. Lo and Ronald E. Kleinman, “Infant Formula, Past and Future: Opportunities for Improvement,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
63 (1996): 646S–650S.

Like the scientists at GTC … mulberry leaves
: E. A. Maga et al., “Production and Processing of Milk from Transgenic Goats Expressing Human Lysozome in the Mammary Gland,”
Journal of Dairy Science
89 (2006): 518–24. Murray and Maga, discussion, January 2012.

The barn is home to 150 assorted goats
: Murray, discussion, February 2012.

the “founder female”
: Murray and Maga, discussion, January 2012.

They’ll make up … after they give birth
: Murray, discussion, January 2012.

1,000 percent more
: Maga et al., “Production and Processing of Milk from Transgenic Goats.”

They’ve also demonstrated … diarrheal disease
: Ibid.

They also had stronger immune
: Brundige et al., “Consumption of Pasteurized Human Lysozyme”; C. A. Cooper et al., “Lysozyme Transgenic Goats’ Milk Positively Impacts Intestinal Cytokine Expression and Morphology,”
Transgenic Research
20, no. 6 (2011): 1235–43.

And when the researchers
tried: Brundige et al., “Lysozyme Transgenic Goats’ Milk.”

in September 2011, they asked
: Murray and Maga, discussion, January 2012.

The compound is well studied
: Murray, discussion, January 2012.

“You’ve been eating lysozyme
…”: Ibid.

Still, Murray and Maga aren’t sure
: Murray and Maga, discussion, 2011.

Murray and Maga are hedging their bets
: Details about the Brazil collaboration are from Murray and Maga, discussions, 2011 and January 2012; “U.S.-Brazilian Research Team to Tackle Deadly Intestinal Diseases with Genetically Enhanced Goats’ Milk,” UC Davis, accessed April 5, 2012,
http://caes.ucdavis.edu/NewsEvents/web-news/2009/march-2009/u.s.-brazilian-research-team-to-tackle-deadly-intestinal-diseases-with-genetically-enhanced-goats2019-milk
.

which is among a handful
: Murray and Maga, discussion, January 2012; Van Eenennaam, discussion; Nicolas Rigaud,
Biotechnology: Ethical and Social Debates
(OECD International Futures Programme, February 2008); “Brazil’s Biotech Boom,”
Nature
466, no. 7304 (2010): 295.

The region is home … fifth birthday
: “U.S.-Brazilian Research Team,” UC Davis.

Assuming the human trials … levels of lysozyme
: Murray and Maga, discussion, January 2012; Maga, discussion, April 2012.

Murray and Maga haven’t quite decided
: Elizabeth Murray, e-mail message to author, June 13, 2012.

In 1975, just as … upon other species
: Peter Singer,
Animal Liberation
, rev. ed. (1975; New York: HarperPerennial, 2009).

“Animals that have previously been…”
: Richard Twine, in discussion with author via telephone, February 21, 2012.

in the United States alone, ten people
: “Xenotransplantation,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, accessed March 9, 2012,
www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Xenotransplantation/default.htm
.

Throughout the twentieth century … than two months
:
Animal-to-Human Transplants: The Ethics of Xenotransplantation
(London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 1996); L. L. Bailey et al., “Baboon-to-Human Cardiac Xenotransplantation in a Neonate,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
254 (1985):3321–29.

Since 1995, the number … involved GM animals
: Home Office,
Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2010
(London: The Stationery Office Limited, 2011), available at
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/other-science-research/spanimals10/spanimals10?view=Binary
.

Japan’s labs are home
: Kenichi Yagami et al., “Survey of Live Laboratory Animals Reared in Japan (2009),”
Experimental Animals
59, no. 4 (2010): 531–35.

the USDA issues an annual report
: U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Annual Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Year, 2010
(July 27, 2011), available for download at
www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/efoia/downloads/2010_Animals_Used_In_Research.pdf
.

Take the popular procedure
: Nicole L. Miller and Brant R. Fulmer, “Injection, Ligation and Transplantation: The Search for the Glandular Fountain of Youth,”
The Journal of Urology
177 (June 2007): 2000–2005.

Surgeons can keep pig valves
: Nuffield Council on Bioethics,
Animal-to-Human
Transplants
, 26.

Enter genetic engineering
:
Information on how genetic engineering could make xenotransplantation a reality is from ibid.; L. Paterson et al., “Application of Reproductive Biotechnology in Animals: Implications and Potentials. Applications of Reproductive Cloning,”
Animal Reproductive Science
79, nos. 3–4 (2003): 137–43; Murray et al., “Current Status of Transgenic Animal Research”; Desmond S. T. Nicholl,
An Introduction to Genetic Engineering
, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 276; “Xenotransplantation,” U.S. FDA.

Sixty-two percent of Americans
: Heather Mason Kiefer, “Americans Unruffled by Animal Testing,” Gallup, Inc., May 25, 2004,
www.gallup.com/poll/11767/americans-unruffled-animal-testing.aspx
.

Monstrous mash-ups
: For overviews of the public reaction to GM animals, see Phil Macnaghten, “Animals in Their Nature: A Case Study on Public Attitudes to Animals, Genetic Modification, and ‘Nature,’”
Sociology
38, no. 3 (2004): 533–51; E. F. Einsiedel, “Public Perceptions of Transgenic Animals,”
Revue Scientifique et Technique
24, no. 1 (2005): 149–57. For scholars’ opinions on these same issues, see the collection of articles in
The American Journal of Bioethics
3, no. 3 (2003). See also Bernard Rollin,
The Frankenstein Syndrome
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Polls reveal that between 97
: Herzog,
Some We Love
, 191.

our appetite for meat
: Ibid.

In a series of recent experiments
: Esmail D. Zanjani et al., “Generation of Functional Humanized Liver in Sheep by Bone Marrow Cells,”
The Journal of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
23 (April 2009): 186.3; Judith A. Airey et al., “Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Form Purkinje Fibers in Fetal Sheep Heart,”
Circulation
109 (2004): 1401–1407; Adel Ersek et al., “Persistent Circulating Human Insulin in Sheep Transplanted In Utero with Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells,”
Experimental Hematology
38, no. 4 (2010): 311–20.

In 1927, Ivanov … this plan
: Kirill Rossiianov, “Beyond Species: Il’ya Ivanov and His Experiments on Cross-Breeding,”
Science in Context
15, no. 2 (2002), 277–316.

Louisiana and Arizona
: Louisiana Rev. Stat. 14:89.6 (2009). Arizona Rev. Stat. 36–2311 (2010).

Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act
: Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009, S. 1435, 111th Cong. (2009). Brownback introduced the bill in 2009, but the Senate never took it up for discussion.