|
|
Columns::July 15, 2002
Second annual Latinos conference will focus on health statewide
UGA offers employees fare-free bus transportation in county
Annual analysis of minority buying power reports dramatic increase in disposable income for all groups
Vet med animal care program earns coveted national accreditation
U. of Akron president, formerly at UGA, to speak at Commencement
BFSO elects officers for 2002-2003 academic year
Update: Private Giving
Campus News
The three little pigs
Pig cloning expands successes in food biotechnology
By Brad Haire and Kim Carlyle
bhaire@uga.edu, kosborne@uga.edu
 |
| Standing behind the cloned piglets are the scientists involved in the project (from left): Scott L. Pratt, ProLinia’s principal scientist; Randy Clayton, research assistant for ProLinia; and Steven Stice, GRA Eminent Scholar at UGA. The source of the cloned cells was the skin of a commercial hog. (Photo by Paul Efland) |
The University of Georgia and ProLinia, an agricultural biotechnology genetics company, have produced three healthy cloned piglets from skin cells from a commercial hog. The piglets were born on May 24 and 27, 2002.
“This accomplishment and the methods used can be a benchmark to move forward developments in hog-cloning efficiencies,” says Steven Stice, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and chief scientific officer at ProLinia.
The hog-cloning research team was led by ProLinia principal scientist Scott L. Pratt using technology acquired in a licensing agreement with Geron Corporation, the company that owns the technology used to clone Dolly the sheep. ProLinia has subsequently filed three improvement patents. This is the first time ProLinia has cloned hogs.
“Cloning technology promises to provide significant improvements once commercialized within the hog and cattle production industries,” says Mike Wanner, president of ProLinia, “and this is another step in our efforts to demonstrate the benefits to meat producers.” Some industry experts estimate that the implementation of pig cloning will save some in the pork industry $5 to $15 per pig while providing consumers a consistently superior product.
Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, has already partnered with ProLinia to implement cloning within a large-scale hog-production operation as part of a technology development agreement. The agreement is nonexclusive and ProLinia plans to commercialize the technology with other large-scale producers.
The birth of the piglets is the third in a series of recent cloning successes for UGA and ProLinia. In the summer of 2001, ProLinia and UGA pioneered a technique that virtually tripled the success rate for calf cloning, and last April ProLinia and UGA scientists became the first to clone a calf from carcass cells after the carcass had been graded. That calf, KC, is alive and well today.
ProLinia and the university work together in one of the many public-private partnerships developed to help the university advance its research mission while simultaneously benefiting the companies within the communities that rely upon it.
|
|
|
|
|
