Argentine Cow Clones to Produce Human Insulin in Milk

Argentine scientists have created four cloned and genetically modified calves capable of producing human insulin in their milk. The newborn Jersey heifers — who the scientists have named Patagonia 1, 2, 3 and 4 — will start producing the human hormone when they reach adulthood.

"This model of a genetically modified cow is a model that allows them to produce large quantities of products at very low cost," said managing director Marcelo Criscuolo, adding that insulin produced by cows would be at least 30-percent cheaper.

To produce pharmaceutical products from cow’s milk, scientists insert the human gene of interest into an embryo before implanting it into a surrogate mother cow. In this case they used a gene for insulin.

Once milk is obtained from the genetically modified cow, it will be purified and refined to extract the insulin. Similar techniques have already been used to produce human proteins in goats and cows.

Argentina, the world’s third-biggest beef exporter, is one of a handful of countries to have cloned livestock.  The company, Bio Sidus started with a cattle fetus taken from a slaughterhouse, removing selected cells from it and splicing in the human insulin gene.

Then they used cloning techniques to take the genetically modified nuclei from these cells and fuse them into cattle eggs. The cloning process starts the egg dividing as if it had been fertilized and they were able to implant four embryos in four surrogate mother cows.

The Patagonia calves, which were born by Caesarean section in February and March, take their name from the vast region that stretches to the tip of South America. Scientists hope the insulin produced in their milk could be on the market in the next couple of years.

There are about 200 million diabetics worldwide, and the Argentine scientists said just 25 insulin-producing cows would be enough for Argentina’s 1.5 million diabetics.

Most insulin is currently produced by genetically engineered bacteria in tanks.

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