By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter



A team of South Korean scientists has created genetically altered pig clones, which produce an exorbitantly expensive substance that helps p a t i e n t s fight cancer.

The team, led by professor Park Chang-sik at Chungnam National University, yesterday said they cloned four female piglets that will secrete GM-CSF in their milk in a year.

“We inserted GM-CSF into somatic cells of Land Race pigs and implanted them into denucleated eggs to produce 1,600 embryos, which made eight surrogates sows pregnant,” the 58- year-old Park said.

“Among them, one surrogate mother gave birth to four piglets, which we expect will produce GM-CSF in their milk next year.

We learned the piglets express the substance.”

GM-CSF is a protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce several kinds of white blood cells and prolong their survival outside the bone marrow.

The protein is prescribed for sufferers of leukemia and anemia or patients who have low white blood cell counts during cancer treatment.

GM-CSF is efficient but it sells at roughly 600 million won a gram because it is hard to make. Until now, scientists have obtained the substance in very small amounts from microbes.

Park expected the GM-CSF produced by genetically engineered pigs would be commercially viable in a decade after going through a serious of clinical tests.

“The potential of these pigs is that GM-CSF producing pigs can be cloned without a secondround genetic change because they already carry GM-CSF in their bodies,” Park said.

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