Dive Brief:
- British scientists have developed a GMO chicken that is more resistant to the bird flu than regular chickens. The GMO chickens also glow in the dark under ultraviolet light (picture here), but that is only for research purposes, and the commercialized GMO chickens would not glow.
- "To genetically engineer chickens, the UK researchers inject a 'decoy' gene" and the fluorescent protein that makes the chickens glow "into a cluster of cells on the yolk of a newly laid egg. The egg will hatch into a chick containing the decoy gene, which it will be able to pass on to its offspring," Reuters reported.
- When the bird flu is introduced to the GMO chickens, their genetic code has been modified to trick the virus, which copies the decoy and prevents the virus from reproducing itself.
Dive Insight:
The bird flu, which killed 48 million birds in the U.S. since December, has significantly impacted the country's egg supply, leading to shortages and price hikes across the U.S. The USDA has been working on finding a vaccine and requested proposals for vaccines from companies last month.
However, with the next potential sweep of bird flu being predicted for the coming fall months, a fast solution is needed.
Even if this GMO chicken was a viable solution to the U.S.'s bird flu problems, the speed necessary to get this product to market would likely not be possible for the upcoming season, if past GMO animals are any indication. GMO salmon has been in the approval process for 20 years, though the FDA declared the animal safe for humans in 2010.