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Columns::April 29, 2002
Faculty members look ‘Towards 2010’ an annual symposium
Trumpet virtuoso Fred Mills named first Prokasy Professor
Vehicle registration begins May 1 for university’s new parking system
Academic Assistance changes its name to Academic Enhancement
Convocation opens new academic year
Setting the agenda
Executive director of international education closes out ‘abroad career
Animal, dairy complex named for Rhodes, former regents chairman
Kudos
Whither the humanities?
A better mousetrap
Campus News
It’s a girl!
K.C. the calf is cloned by scientists at UGA and ProLinia using cells collected from a slaughtered cow
By Kimberly Carlyle
kosborne@uga.edu
Scientists at UGA and ProLinia, an agricultural biotechnology company, have produced the first calf ever cloned from cells of
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| The cells that developed into K.C. came from the kidney area of a cow slaughtered at a local commercial processing facility. A female calf, K.C. is an Angus-Hereford cross sometimes called a “Black Baldy.” (Photo by Rick O’Quinn) |
a slaughtered cow. The healthy calf was delivered by Caesarian section April 22 at the College of Veterinary Medicine. The breakthrough has the potential to revolutionize beef cattle production by allowing producers to select cells from the highest-quality meat after it has been graded to clone animals to stock their herd.
Kidney cells were taken approximately 48 hours after the cow had been slaughtered in a local commercial processing facility, processed for transport and cloned in a UGA-ProLinia laboratory. Cattle producers will be able to select for the genetic traits that result in the highest-quality meat; calves cloned as part of that process will then be given optimal care, resulting in higher quality, more consistent beef products.
“Genetics plays a critical role in the ultimate quality of the meat we eat. Equally important are the animal husbandry practices used, like the quality of the feed provided,” says Steven Stice, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and chief scientific officer at ProLinia. “Some traits are more heritable than others. We believe that production and meat-quality traits like marbling and tenderness are readily passed on to an animal’s offspring and, in this case, the animal’s clone. This science will give us an opportunity to prove our theories, and ultimately ranchers and meat producers will be given a tool to produce more consistent,
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| Steven Stice |
higher-quality meat.”
“This research has tremendous implications for the livestock industry,” says Mike Wanner, president of ProLinia. “Genetics represent the boundary of what an animal can ultimately become. Producers will be able to go into a processing plant after the meat is graded, select the best beef on the line, and use those genetics to develop and improve their herd. In a sense, they will be able to see what kind of quality beef they can produce before they make the investment.”
The process will also allow researchers to study the roles of genetics and environment in beef production. The centuries-old “nature-nurture” debate is being tested in the laboratories of the university.
Genetic material for the clone was taken from the cow’s kidney area, a part routinely left with the side of beef in processing. The ProLinia scientific team, under the direction of John Gibbons and Wash Respess, performed a similar process with cells from the intercostal region (between the ribs) and cells from the end of the forelimb.
“It was important that we did not modify the processing of the beef,” says Wanner. “We wanted to develop a
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| Mike Wanner |
procedure that had little or no disruption to the meat processors’ routine. Processors do not have the luxury of modifying their practice after the beef receives a favorable grade. We needed to use cells from parts that remain with the salable meat.”
The female calf, named K.C. for “kidney cell,” is an Angus-Hereford cross sometimes called a “Black Baldy.” Previously, the only surviving clone of a dead animal was an endangered European mouflon lamb, a rare breed of sheep found on Sardinia, Corsica and Cyprus. The genetic material for that animal was taken from one of two ewes believed to be dead less than 24 hours when found at a wildlife rescue center on Sardinia.
The surgical team that delivered the calf at the College of Veterinary Medicine was led by Fred Caldwell, and the medical team that cared for K.C. after delivery was led by Amelia Woolums.
Stice is one of the world’s leading cloning researchers. In the summer of 2001, he and his ProLinia team pioneered a technique that virtually tripled the success rate for calf cloning, from one in 20 successful births to one in seven. The results of that process were eight calves with an age variance spanning eight months that were all clones of a single cow. He produced the first cloned transgenic calves in 1998 and holds U.S. patents on cloning processes and animal embryonic stem cells.
The technology developed for producing this cloned calf will be patented by UGA and exclusively licensed by ProLinia. ProLinia’s goal is to become the high-volume provider of superior genetics exclusively to the cattle and hog production industries. Sponsored research and licensing agreements with the UGA Research Foundation provide ProLinia with access to the university’s state-of-the-art laboratories and demonstration production facilities. ProLinia is headquartered in Athens. |
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