PlayPigs enlisted in fibrosis fight
Published: Thursday, 25 September 2008, 10:59PM
Scientists have created pigs with cystic fibrosis to help find new treatments for the disease.
The litter of piglets are the first animals that will mimic the symptoms of the inherited illness, which affects more than 8,000 people in the UK.
Cystic fibrosis is triggered by a faulty gene carried by about one in 25 of the population.
The disorder causes widespread damage to internal organs, especially the lungs and gut, by clogging them with mucus. As a result it becomes hard to breathe and digest food.
A baby born with the illness can expect to live to the age of just 31 on average.
Although scientists can engineer laboratory mice with the faulty gene, the animals are too different from humans to help researchers.
Professor Randy Prather, from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where the pigs were born, said: "Right now, if you want to do experiments to find treatments or therapies for the lung disease that is fatal for people with Cystic Fibrosis, you would have to experiment on kids that have Cystic Fibrosis.
"When the genetic mutation is introduced into mice, they do not display the symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis. That's why these new swine models are so important.
"We have been able to get them through the initial stages of the disease, which they display just like humans, and now we are just waiting for them to grow and potentially develop the lung disease so we can start experimenting in ways that have never been possible to unravel long-standing mysteries about the disease."
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