RP guns for animal cloning

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

WHAT do the sheep Dolly, the dog Snuppy and Amy the cow have in common? They’re all clones, exact copies of their parents from a single cell. Now the Philippines is hoping to replicate the same cloning techniques to deliver the country’s first cloned carabao or water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis carabanesis).

The Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) and the Department of the Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCARRD) are working together to create a breed of cloned “super buffalos” for use primarily to improve the country’s livestock supply.

These super buffalos are actually the regular carabaos that have been naturally bred specifically to yield more milk and meat while resistant to carabao diseases. They have not been genetically modified in any way.

The cloning technique to be employed by scientists from the PCC and PCARRD is called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, the same method used by British genetic engineers to create Dolly, the first artificially cloned mammal. It involves cells from an adult animal extracted and then placed into oocytes or immature ovum that will serve as its host. It is similar to in vitro fertilization but instead of using live sperm from a male, the cell is extracted from any part of the animal, including skin and hair. The cell contains the blueprint of all living things, thus using it as a primary cell directly copies the genetic material into the new animal.

Afterwards, the cell and the oocyte, now called the embryo, is placed into a host animal. In this case, another healthy carabao will serve as a surrogate parent for the maturing super carabao embryo.

During the presentation, PCC supervising science research specialist Edwin Atabay said the project is already in its next phase as they have already cultivated about 1, 500 embryos, all of which will soon be implanted into a healthy heifer. Atabay noted that the failure rate is very high during cloning processes and the PCC and the PCARRD are expecting a success rate of only five percent.

“This is because the recipient animal might reject the embryo so we’ll have to keep on repeating the process until we succeed,” Atabay said.

Atabay hopes that the first live cloned specimen, which would be female, will be born within a year or two, depending on the progress of further testing the viability of the embryos.

Atabay added the cloning of carabaos was intended to help the livestock industry improve its cattle and milk yield, which is already in decline in the Philippines. Much of the cattle meat being consumed in the Philippines today is imported, with the Philippines producing 59 percent of the total requirement. Likewise, milk and dairy products are mostly imported with the Philippines producing only two percent of the overall requirement.

“On an average, we’re importing 26 billion pesos worth of milk and dairy products and another 24 billion for carabeef (carabao meat),” Atabay said.

PCARRD director for Livestock Research Edwin Villar said that by creating genetically superior carabaos the country can start producing its own requirements for beef, milk and dairy products, which helps not just the consumer but also the local livestock industry.

He also hopes that their research coming from the cloning procedure of carabaos will be useful for global research on animal cloning.

Villar said the PCC and PCARRD have already invested around P6 million in the project, which includes improvements in PCC laboratories specifically for cloning, as well as training of scientists in this field.

He also said that the resulting cloned animals will not be sold commercially, but will be the source for subsequent production of live animals to be distributed to livestock farmers nationwide.

And like all proud parents, the PCC and PCARRD are hoping to name their first-born cloned carabao after an important person.

“We may call it ‘Estrella,’” Villar joked, referring to Science Secretary Estrella Alabastro, who discreetly requested both agencies not to name the animal after her.

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