Cow Rumen: A Case Study

The project that I chose for the Baroness to fund was proposed by John, Anne, Adam, and Heather and was title “Integration of Lignin-Degrading Enzyme in Cow Rumen”. This project is seeking to generate a recombinant E. coli that degrades lignin into digestible compounds that the cow can utilize as energy source. This project was particularly useful in that it is seeking to take advantage of an energy source that is a carbon rich nutrient, thus allowing for an increase in efficiency of digestion for the cow. During the presentation, the authors were able to explain their methods in detail and seem well knowledgeable on the subject. One of my probing question for this group was “how are you planning on transferring your gene of interest into the …show more content…
This project was proposed by Whitney, Ryan, Emily, and Brady and was title “Producing Threonine within the cow: Adding thrABC to the operon”. The authors of this project are seeking to use restriction enzyme to take the thrABC gene from E. col and add it to another that has been mutated to have the cellA gene. This project however had an unclear approach as the authors were unable to explain what each gene of thrABC code for and how do they all contribute to the production of threonine. I decided that the Baroness should not fund this project because the authors seem to not understand their project beyond a surface level. Another Cow of the Future project I decided the Baroness should not fund was title “Increasing Milk and Meat Production in Cattle through Biovine Growth”, by Priya, Cara, Riya, and Chelsea. This group is seeking to increase biovine growth hormone (BGH) levels in cows as an attempt to increase milk and meat production by cattle. The project aims to spray recombinant E. coli on cattle feed so that it would be integrated into the digestive track of the cows and release into their bloodstream. However, the authors fail to address certain ethical consequences this project may pose. Spraying recombinant E. coli on cow’s feed may cause BGH to diffuse into the air, affecting the wider ecosystem. The cows themselves may not benefit from this project being that it isn’t guaranteed that spraying the recombinant E. col on the feed will result in sufficient amount of BGH making it to the cows’ bloodstream. The last project I decided the Baroness should not fund was title “It’s a Fecal Matter: Lowering Ammonia Levels in the Environment from Cows by Using Oxidizing Bacteria”, which was proposed by Alex, Chris, Mason, and Ryan. This group is seeking to create a recombinant E. coli with amoA gene inserted