The heirs of Dolly the sheep are enjoying a healthy old age, proving cloned animals can live normal lives and offering reassurance to scientists hoping to use cloned cells in medicine. Dolly, cloning’s poster child, was born in Scotland in 1996. She died prematurely in 2003, aged six, after developing osteoarthritis and a lung infection,
Dolly sheep clones reach ripe old age
The study results are reassuring after Dolly’s early death
EU agency wants 65 per cent cut in farm use of last-ditch antibiotic
Colistin is widely used in livestock production and resistant bacteria are growing
Agricultural use of a last-resort antibiotic should be cut by two-thirds to limit the spread of dangerous drug resistance, European medicine regulators said on May 26. The demand for strict curbs on giving colistin to animals is the latest in a string of warnings about antimicrobial resistance. It follows the discovery last year of a
G7 told to act on antibiotics as dreaded superbug hits U.S.
The U.S. has recorded its first case of resistance to last-resort drug, but it has already surfaced in Canada and Europe
Britain told the G7 industrial powers on May 27 to do more to fight killer superbugs as the United States reported its first patient with bacteria resistant to a last-resort antibiotic. U.S. scientists said the infection in a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman “heralds the emergence of truly pandrug-resistant bacteria” because it could not be controlled even
Disease-resistant pigs latest win for gene editing technology
London | Reuters — A British animal genetics firm, working with U.S. scientists, has bred the world’s first pigs resistant to a common viral disease, using the hot new technology of gene editing. Genus, which supplies pig and bull semen to farmers worldwide, said on Tuesday it had worked with the University of Missouri to
Drug resistance in new China bird flu raises concern
The new bird flu strain that has killed 36 people in China has proved resistant to Tamiflu for the first time, a development scientists said was “concerning.” The H7N9 virus was found to be resistant to Roche’s widely used flu drug in three out of 14 patients who were studied in detail by doctors from
U.K. scientists develop safer foot-and-mouth vaccine
Reuters / British scientists have developed a new vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease that is safer and easier to manufacture, an advance they believe should greatly increase production capacity and reduce costs. The technology behind the livestock product might also be applied to make improved human vaccines to protect against similar viruses, including polio. The new
Study on rats fed Roundup-tolerant corn draws skepticism
In a study that prompted sharp criticism from other experts, French scientists said on Wednesday that rats fed on Monsanto’s genetically modified corn or exposed to its top-selling weedkiller suffered tumours and multiple organ damage. The French government asked the country’s health watchdog to investigate the findings further, although a number of scientists questioned the
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