Scientists who used the gene-editing technology CRISPR to create chickens resistant to avian influenza also showed how quickly a dangerous bird flu could mutate from laboratory chickens to humans, critics of a new study in the journal Nature Communications told The Defender.
The authors of the study, led by researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, altered the genetic code of 10 chickens to make them resistant to a bird-flu virus and then exposed them to the virus.
They also included 10 chickens in the study that were not genetically altered. All 10 chickens not genetically altered got sick when they were exposed to the virus. Only one of the genetically altered chickens got sick with the bird flu.
Altering a species’ DNA “promises a new way to make permanent changes in the disease resistance of an animal,” University of Edinburgh embryologist Mike McGrew, Ph.D., an author of the study, said at an Oct. 5 news briefing announcing the peer-reviewed research.
“This can be passed down through all the gene-edited animals, to all the offspring.”
According to the study, “Chickens genetically resistant to avian influenza could prevent future outbreaks. … Breeding for resistance and resilience to disease has significant potential in farmed poultry,” freeing farmers from routinely having to vaccinate birds.
But Jonathan Latham, executive director of the Bioscience Resource Project, who has a master’s degree in crop genetics and a Ph.D. in virology, told The Defender,
“The experiments were ultimately a failure of ‘the operation was a success but the patient died’ variety.”
When the 10 genetically altered chickens were exposed to a much higher dose of bird flu — more in line with what the chickens could be exposed to in nature or a factory farm setting — five of the 10 chickens developed the flu.
Virus samples collected from the infected, genetically altered birds showed the virus had made several mutations that seemed to allow it to bind to the ANP32A protein to replicate in the chickens, the study reported.
The virus also mutated a workaround to bind to two other related proteins for replication.
Worse yet, according to Latham, mutations also helped the virus replicate more efficiently in human cells.
Hellbound and Down 