The Industrialization of Transgenic Animals December 1999 Animal pharming, the process of using transgenic animals to produce human drugs, is staking its claim in a lucrative world market. Transgenic animals are animals which have been genetically transformed by splicing and inserting foreign animal or human genes into their chromosomes. The inserted gene, when successful, enables an animal to make a certain pharmaceutical protein in its milk, urine, blood, sperm, or eggs, or to grow rejection-resistant organs for transplant. Global demand continues to grow for human proteins and vaccines.
Transgenic animals are costly to produce and they have high value.
A recent Financial Times article reported that a herd of 600 transgenic cows could supply the worldwide demand of some pharmaceuticals, for example, human serum albumin used in the treatment of burns and traumatic injuries . With greater integration of computers into laboratory functions, molecular biologists have drastically reduced the time needed to identify and isolate genes. As gene sequencing has become increasingly automated, each known sequence is recorded and stored in a data base. Animal producers are using the body of genetic information to produce transgenic animals. Automated gene sequencing and the biological advantages of animals, when compared to more traditional methods of recombinant protein production, have combined to make pharming a preferred alternative.