Japan Is Fighting Cancer With Genetically Engineered Chicken Eggs

Most efforts to fight cancer these days is either through chemicals such as those used in chemotherapy or via genetic engineering. In Japan, researchers went with the latter and used chickens as the tool. The scientists basically engineered poultry to lay eggs that will then be capable of fighting cancer as well as other types of diseases.

The new revolutionary method was performed by researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), which is located in the Osaka prefecture, The Japan News reports. Their project resulted in a hen laying eggs, which then contain pharmaceutical agents designed to fight certain illnesses such as cancer and hepatitis.

The researchers are planning on partnering with a research company to sell the drug, which might cut the costs of cancer drugs by as much as half the current price. It doesn’t stop there, either. The researchers are hoping that with this new method, the price of curing cancer will be reduced to a mere 10 percent of what it costs now. At least, this is what professor Hironobu Hojo of Osaka University said.

“This is a result that we hope leads to the development of cheap drugs,” Hojo said to The Japan News. “In the future, it will be necessary to closely examine the characteristics of the agents contained in the eggs and determine their safety as pharmaceutical products.”

The key to the drug lies in a type of protein, which is apparently effective at treating a particularly deadly kind of skin cancer, Futurism reports. This protein was then inserted into the eggs during the fertilization process. Eventually, the latest generation of eggs finally inherited the protein after several rounds of cross-breeding.

In essence, the researchers conducted artificial selection, which is something that gene-editing tools like CRISPR have made infinitely easier. This is just one example of how the future of medicine will be like.