Researchers hoping to produce modified chickens hatched with in-built resistance to bird flu will conduct trials on live hens later this year, an Australian scientist said on Tuesday.
CSIRO research scientist, Dr Tim Doran, has been using a technique called gene silencing to “switch off” virus genes that make chickens susceptible to H5N1, the bird flu that has devastated livestock and killed 359 people worldwide since 2003.
H5N1 can be transmitted from bird to human; however, health authorities fear a pandemic could break out if the disease mutates and develops the ability to jump more readily from person to person.
Dr Doran said his team has shown, in mice and in fertilised chicken eggs, that gene silencing techniques can stop bird flu by interrupting the virus' reproduction processes. They have now produced transgenic chickens, which should be resistant to H5N1 and be able to pass that resistance onto their chicks.
“We are getting geared up to do what we call a challenge experiment, where we test our transgenic chickens for resistance to bird flu virus. We expect the first lot of those experiments to be conducted late this year or early next year,” Dr Doran said on Tuesday, speaking fro... http://theconversation.edu.au/silencing-the-bird-flu-gene-scientists-prep-live-hen-trials-10232
