Children's Health Defense By
Scientists who used the gene-editing technology CRISPR to create chickens resistant to avian influenza also showed how quickly a dangerous bird flu could mutate from laboratory chickens to humans, critics of a new study in the journal Nature Communications told The Defender.
The authors of the study, led by researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, altered the genetic code of 10 chickens to make them resistant to a bird-flu virus and then exposed them to the virus.
They also included 10 chickens in the study that were not genetically altered. All 10 chickens not genetically altered got sick when they were exposed to the virus. Only one of the genetically altered chickens got sick with the bird flu.
Altering a species’ DNA “promises a new way to make permanent changes in the disease resistance of an animal,” University of Edinburgh embryologist Mike McGrew, Ph.D., an author of the study, said at an Oct. 5 news briefing announcing the peer-reviewed research…
