| IT WILL horrify the French, put Daisy the cow out of a job, and bring the price of cheese crashing down. Scientists in New Zealand have cloned a herd of cows designed to produce genetically enhanced milk that almost turns itself into cheese.
Cows have previously been genetically modified to produce medicinal proteins in their milk, but researchers have now created nine cows engineered to produce milk that can be turned into cheese far faster and more easily.
The team led by Gotz Laible at AgResearch in Hamilton, New Zealand, engineered cow cells to overproduce milk proteins called caseins. This family of proteins provides the primary components of cheese. Kappa-casein increases heat stability of cheese. Beta-casein improves processing by reducing clotting time and expelling more whey, the watery residue that has to be removed when making cheese. It also helps to determine calcium levels.
Increasing the levels of these two proteins could produce big savings for cheese makers, scientists say. | |
