Super Pig with Anemia Cure ?

A genetically altered pig that makes milk containing an expensive anemia medicine material is not far in the future, Korean scientists say. For the first time Korean researchers have created a male pig from which they claim can create the necessary female.
The National Livestock Research Institute announced on May 26, 'We developed the possibility to breed an anemia cure material producing pig whose characteristics are altered by injecting the Erythropoietin(EPO), the hematosis promoting hormone made in the human kidneys, to the pig's fertilized egg.
The institute named the pig 'Saeromi' which means new kid in Korean.
Doctor Jang Won Kyoung, the leader of the project, said, 'We made a male pig with EPO through 2 years' experimentation while only rats were made in other countries. EPO's price is 670,000 dollars per 1 gram and the international market will exceed 2.6 billion dollars. We plan to produce it on a commercial scale in two years by developing the refinery technology.'
If a disorder occurs in the kidney, the anemia attacks due to the formation's suspension of EPO, which controls the manufacture of red blood cells.
So EPO is used for curing anemia, AIDS and cancer.
The researchers will apply for a international patent of 'Saeromi' and multiply the female pigs that make milk with the EPO gene.

Jooan Kang : jooan@joongang.co.kr