The pigs that could provide Huntington’s breakthrough

SCIENTISTS have engineered the first pigs with Huntington’s disease in a development that could lead to a breakthrough for humans with the condition.

The team used a gene-editing technique to introduce a segment of the human gene that causes the neurodegenerative disease, which affects around 5,700 people in Britain.

The research teams at Jinan University in China and Emory University in the US will now be able to test whether it is possible to use the technique to “edit out” Huntington’s before trying it on humans.

“We think the pig model will fill an important gap,” said Li Shihua, the co-senior author and professor of human genetics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

“In pigs, the pattern of neurodegeneration is almost the same as in humans.”

The new research is published in the journal Cell.

Scientists in the US and China engineered the pigs with the neurodegenerative condition Huntington’s disease, using a gene-editing technique