Biotech Updates

Gelatin Recovery System from GM Corn Established

August 31, 2007

Scientists have successfully modified corn to produce recombinant gelatin and have recently devised a method to recover and purify the small amounts of gelatin present in the young transgenic corn. The method, developed by Charles Glatz at Iowa State University in Ames and FibroGen, Inc., in South San Francisco, used a four-step recovery system to separate the recombinant protein from other corn proteins with sufficient purity . The details of the new process was presented by Cheng Zhang, a doctoral student at Iowa State University at the 234th American Chemical Society meeting.

Gelatin, a jelly-like substance derived from the breakdown of collagen, has been commercially produced for pharmaceutical purposes from the by-products of the meat industry: the skin, tendon, bone, cartilage and connective tissues of animals. However concerns on the possible presence of infectious agents in animal by-products, and the lack of traceability of the source of the raw materials necessitate the production of plant-derived collagen.

The news article can be viewed at http://www.physorg.com/news107072126.html and http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/532430/details for the research abstract.