Transgenic cows boost human insulin production by 10X

Chris Remington@beehaw.org to Science@beehaw.org – 58 points –
Transgenic cows boost human insulin production by 10X
newatlas.com
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Let me know if and when this makes insulin cheap enough to afford. If we're going to continue making big companies richer at the expense of sick people, we might as well not gloat about these achievements.

And if you're going to talk about the dependence of price on demand and supply, you're still not getting it. These companies are masters at creating artificial scarcity by several means including patents and price gouging cartels.

This. This. This.

We have a reliable means that doesn't require producing large animals that will, at scale, put more needless pressure on our collapsing ecosystems. Get insulin out of corporate pharmaceuticals and into a basic right to cost-free access model where we, society, fund the production.

It's still good to know this stuff so we know which labs to raid first when civilization collapses.

I prefer my insulin straight from people. I will never use GMO insulin!

First I misread the headline as "transgender cows" and then you're in the comments talking about straight people insulin.

I think it's time for bed.

Next, could we boost diabetic people's insulin production?

Selectively breeding and cloning genetically modified humans, is kind of frowned upon...

Indeed. I'm thinking of CRISPR/Cas9 which is a genetic editing method, which is more ethical.

Editing genes is incredibly complex. Changes to one gene can affect many seemingly unrelated systems. That's why they choose their targets very carefully.

And it can potentially work only for genetic decease. I'm not sure any type of diabetes would qualify.

Yeah type 1 is an immune response and type 2 is a lack of production.

So with 2 you could maybe up insulin production genetically. But that seems like a risky game haha