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By Chuck Toney
ctoney@uga.edu
Researchers at UGA last month announced a technique which may dramatically improve the success rate of cattle cloning, and displayed eight cloned cattle, ranging in age from two months to four months, as evidence of their success.
As little as two years ago, the highest rate of success for cloning attempts was one in 20; the new technique has a success rate of one in seven, almost three times as high.
“To produce offspring and develop methods to improve the efficiency of the cloning process has been our goal,” says Steve Stice, who directed the research. The calves will help pave the way for improved cloning technology, says Stice, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar with the animal and dairy science department.
About 200 cloned embryos are produced in Stice’s lab each day. Only 10 to 20 percent of those embryos make it through the first seven days to be then transferred into recipient cows, he says. The existence of eight full-term, healthy calves means, says Stice, “We’ve shown significant improvement in the process.”
The calves are clones of a cow that had grown too old to reproduce but had desirable traits worth preserving. The cloning process doesn’t change the genetic makeup. It repeats it, just like an identical twin in nature.
“Improvement in the efficiency of cloning will allow us to reproduce those individuals, bulls or cows, that have lost the ability to reproduce because of age or accident,” says Larry Benyshek, animal and dairy science department head. “If we can spread improved genetics at a faster rate, this will be a great benefit for producers. That has ramifications for consumers and the public in general.”
Established breeding programs develop the genetic traits farmers want, such as consistent meat and better breeding and nurturing characteristics, Stice says, and cloning is a way to duplicate those traits. “The next step is to take it further and make additional jumps in pregnancy rates,” he says.
The UGA calves were cloned using technology developed in collaboration between the animal and dairy science department and Athens-based Prolinia, Inc. The technology will be patented by UGA and licensed by Prolinia.
“This is a fantastic breakthrough,” says Benyshek. “It’s right in line with many breakthroughs in animal biotechnology. We’ll have to become more efficient so there is more product to meet demand without harming the environment and to allow us to produce more on a smaller quantity of land. This research is certainly a step in that direction.” |
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