Pig That Models Human Diseases Such As Obesity, Diabetes, And Cardiovascular Disease Gets International Attention

What a waste. There have been pigs like this around for quite some time:

A detailed annotation of the genome of T.J. Tabasco, a pig from the University of Illinois South Farms, is the outcome of over 10 years of work by an international consortium. It is expected to speed progress in both biomedical and agricultural research. U of I Vice President for Research Lawrence Schook said that the College of ACES played a crucial role in getting the work started.

Funding that came through ACES allowed Schook and others to put together the Swine Genome Sequencing Consortium, an alliance of university, industry, and government laboratories in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The USDA committed 10 million dollars to the project. Today the project includes scientists from more than 50 research groups.

Schook said that the project has three main objectives: (1) to serve as a blueprint for understanding evolution and domestication, (2) to advance research on animal production and health, and (3) to explore ways to use the pig in biomedical applications.

Not to mention the fact that they have to engineer a special pig to get as sick as a fat human.

Be proud, fat people.