Genetic modifications may protect against BSE

CATTLE can be genetically altered to lack the protein that causes mad-cow disease without adverse health effects, a study suggests.

Scientists at Hematech Inc, a unit of Japan’s Kirin Brewery Co, and the US Department of Agriculture found that cows bred without the so-called prion protein were healthy at age 20 months and their tissue showed signs of resistance to mad-cow disease. The brain-wasting illness is fatal to cows and has been linked to almost 200 human deaths in the past decade.

The findings, published on the website of the journal Nature Biotechnology, suggested that modifications could protect cattle from mad-cow disease, potentially eradicating the threat to livestock and the people who ate them or used products made from them.

James Robl, president of Hematech, said the company hoped to sell its research to agriculture or industry groups.

The technology “alleviates the concerns about bovine products and the risk of contamination,” Mr Robl said in a telephone interview. “We have an interest in licensing this technology but don’t anticipate pursuing it ourselves.”

Knocking out the gene for mad-cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a “side project” for Hematech’s efforts to develop human medicines in cows, Mr Robl said.

Kirin, Japan’s largest beverage maker, announced in May 2004 that it planned to produce drugs based on human antibodies grown in cattle.

Robl said Hematech needed to see whether it could protect cattle from mad-cow disease before it could begin testing cow- derived medicines in people, a process he thought might begin in the “next several years”.

Meanwhile, the number of BSE cases in Ireland continues to fall in line with expert predictions.

Department of Agriculture and Food figures showed there was a total of 41 confirmed cases for 2006 compared with 69 cases for 2005. There were 126 cases in 2004, 182 cases in 2003 and 333 cases in 2002.