A way foward

Good morning pals! Alright, a little bit about science today. I think everyone knows well about this particular widely spread disease known as diabetes. I'm not sure how the other asian countries do, but we, Malaysians love sugar very much. We love teh tarik, kuih-muih, rice, carbonated drinks, everything that gets in our stomach contains sugar except for the non-sugar foods and drinks, but most of it they do.in fact, my father is one of the billions diabetes-infected patient and in malay culture, some of us called it as 'penyakit keturunan'.

Currently persons with diabetes are treated by injecting insulin derived from bacteria and yeast which is if i'm not mistaken the production and selling cost are expensive. However, in the next decades, we will be anticipating a plant-based insulin (an insulin derived from plant) to replace the conventional bacterial or yeast-derived insulin to treat diabetes mellitus. How? ok let me make it simple so it would be easy for the non-science readers. Basically, the scientists ask the plant to produce human insulin by putting a gene or expression system into the plant. I know this might be an ethical issue for those who are antis to genetic manipulation. however, in clinical trials, it has been proved that the plant-derived insulin is capable of reducing blood glucose level in mice effectively without toxic side-effects!

As they claim:  Cheaper production costs, it's stable (does not require refrigeration when being transported), the most interesting is it is edible-easy delivery without the need of professional healthcare!

 Maybe in the future, patients could expect to get an insulin by just eating the leaves (macam makan ulam) or fruits from the engineered plant, a way easy right? So lepas ni jangan takut nak pergi hospital sebab takut kena cucuk.