Plus, the technique is less expensive: A transgenic animal farm with a single purification facility would cost only about $80 million, according to Wang and colleagues. The potential to produce biologics at low cost has encouraged some companies to use transgenic animals. Although several protein drugs made by transgenic animals are in clinical trials, commercialization has been slow. “Milk has produced only two recombinant therapeutic proteins that have moved from lab to market over the past 20 years,” says Louis-Marie Houdebine, a researcher who studies protein drug production in transgenic animals at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, in Paris. The two approved biologics are ATryn, an anti-blood-clotting protein, and Ruconest, a protein that treats rapid tissue swelling.
by Biplab Das | May 11, 2015
To make the magic happen, the researchers designed and synthesized DNA-assembled recombinant transcription factors, or DARTs (Nat. Mater. 2015, DOI: 10.1038/nmat4269). A DART has a set of three major components that can bind the transcription factor of choice, deliver it to endosomes in a specific cell type, and then break apart endosomes to give the factor access to the nucleus. The researchers tested the technique by injecting DARTs into mice that had been given a dose of acetaminophen sufficient to cause liver damage. The DARTs delivered a transcription factor called nuclear erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2) directly to the liver cells, where it turned on protective genes that prevented liver injury.
by Stu Borman | April 30, 2015
The technique made it possible to detect glycan biosynthesis in specific locations during zebrafish development. Two other groups later developed tetrazine ligation, the cycloaddition of tetrazine and strained alkene derivatives, which proceeds at fast rates that dwarf those of all other bioorthogonal transformations.
by Stu Borman | December 18, 2014
They used recombinant GroEL/ES to successfully fold a synthetic mirror-image version of 4-hydroxy-tetrahydrodipicolinate synthase (DapA), the smallest protein they could find that depends on the chaperone and has a functional assay that doesn’t require chiral reagents (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2014, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1410900111).
by Celia Henry Arnaud | August 18, 2014
However, they write, “Given that traditional breeding techniques also result in genetic modifications,” the terms GM and GMO are not specific for foods produced through the use of recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology. The paper’s authors use the more precise term “genetically engineered” or GE. The CAST paper starts with the premise that GE foods are safe because hundreds of independent studies have shown that this is the case.
by Rudy M. Baum | May 12, 2014
The ability to splice DNA with restriction enzymes and to introduce DNA from one organism into another using recombinant DNA technology revolutionized molecular biology and gave scientists an unprecedented ability to manipulate the code of life. In the mid-1970s, Frederick Sanger developed dideoxy DNA sequencing, which enabled his team at Cambridge to read the genome of the bacteriophage phi X 174.
by Laura Cassiday | January 27, 2014
The electrons and holes travel through charge transport layers to a light-emitting active region, where they recombine. This recombination results in the emission of a photon. The wavelength of that photon depends on the material and the electronic levels involved. But the similarities end there. To make LEDs, crystalline gallium nitride is generally deposited onto a substrate such as sapphire.
by Celia Henry Arnaud | October 07, 2013
Sandoz, the generic drug arm of Switzerland’s Novartis, has been making recombinant therapeutic proteins for 30 years. Having decided in 1995 to develop biosimilars, it is now the market leader with 2012 sales of $335 million from three products. Sandoz has five more biosimilars in late-stage clinical trials, including versions of Rituxan and Enbrel.
by Ann M. Thayer | October 03, 2013
Advances in recombinant DNA technology and directed evolution have now made it possible to pursue the development of enzymes that might work as nerve-agent protectants and antidotes. Numerous research labs, mostly in the U.S., but also in Western European countries such as the U.K., are collaborating with U.S.
by Elizabeth K. Wilson | September 20, 2013