Home pagePress monitoringInsulin produced in genetically modified lettuce relieves...

Insulin produced in genetically modified lettuce relieves diabetes in mice

Datum: 6.8.2007 

Capsules of insulin produced in genetically modified lettuce could hold the key to restoring the body's ability to produce insulin and help millions of Americans who suffer from insulin-dependent diabetes, according to University of Central Florida biomedical researchers.

Professor Henry Daniell's research team genetically engineered tobacco plants with the insulin gene and then administered freeze-dried plant cells to five-week-old diabetic mice as a powder for eight weeks. By the end of the study, the diabetic mice had normal blood and urine sugar levels, and their cells were producing normal levels of insulin.

Those results and prior research indicate that insulin capsules could someday be used to prevent diabetes before symptoms appear and treat the disease in its later stages, Daniell said. He has since proposed using lettuce instead of tobacco to produce the insulin because that crop can be produced cheaply and avoids the negative stigma associated with tobacco....

Whole article on checkbiotech

 

International Events

The Second International Conference on Biological and Environmental Sciences (2ICBES)
Mansoura and Luxor, Egypt, March 15-20, 2010

XGen Congress
San Diego, CA, United States, March 15-19, 2010

Drug Discovery Technology World Asia 2010
Singapore, March 16-19, 2010

TOPlist