Transgenic microbes
Bacteria were the first organisms to be modified in the laboratory, due to their simple genetics. These organisms are now used in a variety of tasks, and are particularly important in producing large amounts of pure human proteins for use in medicine. Genetically modified bacteria are used to produce the protein insulin, to treat diabetes. Similar bacteria have been used to produce clotting factors to treat haemophilia, and human growth hormone to treat various forms of dwarfism. These recombinant proteins are much safer than the products they replaced, since the older products were purified from cadavers and could transmit diseases. Indeed the human-derived proteins caused many cases of AIDS and hepatitis C in haemophilliacs and Creutzfeldt Jakob disease from human growth hormone.
