Inquiring minds  might want to know more about the bioengineering going on in
at Virginia Tech.  Todays Roanoke Times (http://www.roanoke.com) features an
article entitled "Blacksburg company eagerly awaits perfected cloning
process".
Highlights of the article include:  "What the company hopes to make are
proteins, to be sold to large pharmaceutical manufacturers and small
biotechnology companies and used to fight disease in humans".   "PPL
Therapeutics raises transgenic cows, pigs and rabbits, whose genes have been
mixed with another species' DNA so that their milk will have proteins that
can be used in the production of drugs.  The proteins are used to fight
diseases such as emphysema and cyctic fibrosis".  "PPL in Blacksburg doesn't
have a product yet.  The company is working with pharmaceutical companies to
develop cows with the proper DNA.  It is still several years away from
turning them into four-legged therapeutic protein factories". "Now 7 to 10
percent of all live cows born at the company's Montgomery County 700-acre
farm  have DNA that has been altered for that purpose. Those are grown to
maturity, milked and mated.  It's sort of a high-tech crapshoot".
 PPL Therapeutics, a Scottish company merged in 93 with Transpharm started by
Tracy Wilkins a Tech prof.   I attended a lecture by Dr. Wilkins about a year
ago and asked at that time, if the proteins they hope to produce would be put
into abm (or ahm !).  He said yes, and that in fact a herd of cows located in
France was being increased for just that purpose.  The problem was, there
just weren't enough cows to make enough of the "new milk" to market, yet.
 PPL merged with Transpharm because they were experimenting only with sheep
and wanted to get into pigs as well as cows.   Four Websites are noted in the
two-page article.  We will continue to prepare for the inevitable hype
surrounding the first immuno-protein in abm!  Apologies for the lengthy post,
however, inquiring minds want to know!
Vicki Honer ACCE IBCLC
"I'm here to serve!"