Posted on 01/26/2003 4:58:35 PM PST by dighton
Scientists have created nine cloned cows whose milk is genetically geared for cheese-making.
The designer cows are engineered to produce milk enriched with cheese proteins.
Researchers hope the breakthrough will transform the cheese industry. It could lead to GM animals with milk which can be turned into cheese faster and more easily.
Cows have previously been engineered to produce medicinal proteins in their milk. But this is the first time the milk itself has been genetically enhanced.
A team led by Gotz Laible at AgResearch in Hamilton, New Zealand, engineered cow cells in the laboratory to overproduce milk proteins called caseins. These provide the primary components of cheese.
One, kappa-casein, increases heat stability and other cheese-making properties.
Another, beta-casein, improves processing by reducing clotting time and expelling more whey, the watery residue that has to be removed when making cheese. It also helps determine calcium levels in milk.
Scientists believe controlling levels of these two proteins could produce big savings for cheese manufacturers.
Reporting their findings in the journal Nature Biotechnology, they wrote: “When projected on to the production scale of the dairy industry, the increases observed in our study represent large changes that would translate into substantial economic gains.”
However, they said it would take about four years to introduce the altered genes into dairy herds on a large scale. The scientists said the cows demonstrated it was possible to dramatically change the composition of cow milk by genetic engineering.
Heck, you could have taken the Willie Green approach and just explained how many jobs in the dairy industry were going to be lost to cloned-cow cheese...
Don't forget North vs. South. "Lincoln, killer of cheese."
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