In a country clouded by a deep suspicion of foods from cloned
animals, a little Sunshine may help soften consumers' fears.
Born on the coldest night of the year in mid-December, Sunshine
is a female calf that's just like countless other calves born
around the country.
The only thing special about Sunshine is her mama, KC, the first
cow ever cloned from cells collected from a dead cow. KC was
named after the kidney cell from which she was cloned after
it was taken from a side of beef in the freezer.
"She's a beautiful calf," said Steve Stice, the University
of Georgia scientist who directed the team of scientists who
cloned KC. "This is not a great scientific feat. It's just
another indication that cloned animals can reproduce and have
normal offspring."
Sunshine's birth was so perfectly unremarkable that most Americans'
disapproval of animals like her seems hard to justify.
She got her start when KC was artificially inseminated with
semen from an Angus bull. She was born naturally in the middle
of the night without human help. She's alert, lively and the
right size for a calf born to a first-calf heifer -- 72 pounds.
"KC is a great mother," said Allison Adams, a former
UGA graduate assistant who worked with Stice on the project,
along with Kate Hodges, another former UGA graduate assistant.
Stice clearly believes in the benefits of cloning that Sunshine's
mama makes obvious.
Farmers have been improving the genetics of their herds since
the first cattle were domesticated. But it's a painfully slow
process. Carefully culling the worst and breeding the best may
produce noticeable improvements over a lifetime.
Cloning, though, can greatly speed that process by producing
exact genetic copies of the best animals. The technology Stice
used to clone KC now makes it possible to evaluate even carcass
traits such as marbling and tenderness before making the copies.
Like KC, the cloned cattle themselves won't go into the food
chain. "They're too valuable," said Stice, who conducted
the research with the biotechnology firm ProLinia Inc. ProLinia
was later bought by ViaGen, Inc.
The offspring of cloned cattle, though, will be valued mostly
by people who prize tender, juicy steaks and roasts. That's
what makes Sunshine newsworthy.
The curious, lively Sunshine confirms what Stice already knew
about cloned animals. "Their offspring are normal,"
he said.
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Sunshine
(right) is a normal calf in every way. The only thing that makes her
special is that she was born to KC, the first cow cloned from cells
collected from a dead cow.
