Tuesday, June 25, 2002

WRITER: Kim Carlyle, (706)583-0913, kosborne@uga.edu
CONTACT: Mike Wanner, (706) 714-4389, mwanner@prolinia.com

CLONED PIGS DEMONSTRATE CONTINUED COMMITMENT TO ADVANCES IN FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY BY UGA, PROLINIA

ATHENS, Ga. — The University of Georgia and ProLinia, Inc., 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," said Steven Stice, professor and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and chief scientific officer at ProLinia, Inc.

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 additional 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," said 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 non-exclusive 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 in April 2002, 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.

"The science developed by ProLinia and the University of Georgia to produce KC has the potential to revolutionize beef cattle production by allowing producers to select cells from the highest quality meat to clone animals to stock their herds," said Wanner. "KC is thriving under the watch of UGA and ProLinia scientists who monitor her growth and development."

ProLinia and the University of Georgia work together in one of the University’s many public-private partnerships developed to help the university advance its research mission while simultaneously benefiting the companies in the communities that rely upon it. The Georgia Research Alliance represents a partnership of the state's research universities, the business community and state government. Its mission is to foster economic development within Georgia by developing and leveraging the research capabilities of the research universities within the state and to assist and develop scientific and technology-based industry, commerce, and business. For more information about the University of Georgia, please see www.uga.edu/news.

ProLinia’s goal is to become the high-volume provider of superior genetics for the cattle and hog production industries. Sponsored research and licensing agreements with the UGA Research Foundation, Inc. provide ProLinia with access to the University's state of the art laboratories and demonstration production facilities. For more information about ProLinia, headquartered in Athens, Ga., please see www.prolinia.com.


NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA: The piglets and various ProLinia cloned cattle, including KC, will be on display and available for photographers at the Edgar Rhodes Animal and Dairy Science Large Animal Research Unit at the University of Georgia from 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, 2002. Please contact Kim Carlyle at the number above for more information.

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