Human proteins are an increasingly important segment of the pharmaceutical market. They are produced in three ways: 1)lsolation from natural tissues carries disease risk and is subject to a limited supply of starting material; 2)Culture in microbial or mammalian cells is a costly process; 3)Production in transgenic animals is expensive, although less so than cell culture, and does not lend itself to the production of potent protein hormones like erythropoietin or growth factors. A new transgenic method is proposed which should overcome the current technical difficulties faced by large animal transgenic production. The method will be the least expensive pilot-scale production method available, and will allow rapid and inexpensive scale-up in the same system. The proposal encompasses R&D efforts to explore this rapid branch of our core transgenic technology.
The potential commercial applications include the production of commercially- valuable proteins at a low cost. In some cases, this may be the only method for large-scale production. The proteins may be pharmaceutical proteins (e.g. insulin, erythropoietin), antibodies, vaccines, blood proteins (e.g. serum albumin) and enzymes.
