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Genetically modified rubber plants have made human proteins for the first
time, offering a cheap way of harvesting proteins used in drugs and industry.
“It’s a living bioreactor, and we’re getting continuous production simply by
tapping it for milk,” says Hoong-Yeet Yeang of the Rubber Research Institute of
Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. A gene in Yeang’s rubber trees produces human serum
albumin, a nutrient given to patients on drips in intensive care. Yeang says the
yield is high enough to make proteins very cheaply, and the latex left over can
still be used to make rubber.