Human Recombinant Insulin Replaces Animal Insulin and Semisynthetic Insulin Obtained By Modification of Animal Insulin
Human Recombinant Insulin , first made with genetic engineering in 1982, has been the first synthetic enzyme ever made using genetic engineering. Before that, genetically engineered animals, such as cattle and pigs, were the sole source of animal insulin. Recombinant human insulin is the result of a successful breeding campaign between different strains of the HIV virus, which destroys the glycogen-producing pancreatic islet cells in animals. These cells are then replaced by copies of the human insulin gene, making humans the true insulin makers. The first animal insulin was made in pigs with the HIV-1 gene, but this did not produce any healthy mice. In order to make an uninfected animal better, researchers introduced the bill insulin gene into a group of hamsters without infecting them, and these animals lived for more than two months without needing any insulin treatment at all. The pili gene was inserted into the hamsters' genes instead of the glycogen-producing i...