Part of Cloning Team Tackles Plasma Project
Scientists who helped engineer the first cloned sheep are close to generating human blood plasma from animals, a newspaper reported today.
PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish firm that helped Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute clone a sheep, is developing the means to replace the plasma genes of sheep and cows with the human equivalent, according to the Observer, a respected weekly newspaper.
The animals’ milk will then contain the key elements of human blood plasma, including albumen, clotting factors and antibodies, the newspaper reported.
PPL told the paper it plans to rear herds of the animals and manufacture plasma from the proteins extracted from their milk.
PPL hopes the process will be ready “in months,” The Observer quoted Dr. Ron James, the firm’s managing director, as saying.
Only 5% of Britain’s population regularly gives blood. Genetically modified animals could produce 10,000 times more plasma a year than a human donor.
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