Could these piglets become Britain's first commercially viable GM animals?

Pigs 'edited' with a warthog gene to resist African swine fever could help spawn GM animal farms in the UK

On an isolated farm outside Edinburgh, pigs grunt eagerly as their food arrives. The barn has a typical farmyard whiff, and a litter of tiny piglets, born just hours earlier, lie with trotters outstretched and eyes sealed, as helpless as any newborns. Only the occasional fluorescent snout or trotter reveals that the building is home to one of the world's most advanced genetic modification projects.

"These are happy animals. They have a lovely sheen on them, their tails are wagging away," said Prof Bruce Whitelaw, head of developmental biology at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, which is responsible for the pigs.