Scientists make gene-modified chickens to try to end next pandemic

LONDON (Reuters) – British scientists are developing gene – modified chickens designed to be totally resistant to the flu as part of a new approach to curb the next deadly human pandemic.

The first of the transgenic chicks will hatch later this year at the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh University in Scotland, said Wendy Barclay, professor of virology at Imperial College London, who co-directs the project.

Bird DNA has been modified using a new gene editing technology called CRISPR. In this case, the "modifications" consist in removing parts of a protein on which the flu virus normally depends, which makes the chickens totally resistant to the flu.

The idea is to generate poultry that can not catch the flu and that would constitute a "buffer between wild birds and humans," said Barclay.

Specialists in global health and infectious diseases have cited the threat of a human influenza pandemic as their biggest concern.

The balance sheet of the last influenza pandemic in 2009/10 – caused by the H1N1 strain and considered relatively benign – had risen to about half a million people worldwide. The history of the Spanish flu of 1918 killed about 50 million people.

The biggest fear right now is that a deadly strain can pbad from wild birds to humans, via poultry, and then turn into a pandemic airborne form that can easily pbad from one person to another.

"If we could stop the flu virus from pbading wild birds to chickens, we would stop the next pandemic at the source," Barclay said.

In a study published in Nature in 2016, Barclay's team found that a chicken gene called ANP32 encodes a protein that is essential for all influenza viruses to infect a host. Laboratory tests of genetically modified cells do not show that they can not be infected with the flu.

Barclay, who teamed up with Roslin scientists, said the plan is to use CRISPR to modify the chicks' DNA, so that only part of the key protein is changed, leaving the rest behind. from the bird exactly genetically identical to what it was before.

"We have identified the smallest change that will stop the virus in its path," she said.

Scientists at the Roslin Institute gained fame in 1996 as creators of "Dolly the Sheep", the world's first cloned animal. They also created gene-modified pigs to make them resistant to a virus.

Barclay said one of the biggest hurdles to this approach would be poultry producers' concern about public acceptance. "People are eating foods from livestock that have been modified by decades of traditional farming," she said. "But they might be nervous about eating genetically modified food."