Scientists Unveil Australia's First Cloned Beef Cow
AUSTRALIA - In an Australian first, scientists have cloned a beef cow on a central Queensland property.The process of cloning "Mini" the brahman cost her owners around $30,000 and was cloned because a prized stud cow became too old to breed.
Dr Richard Fry from Clone International says the process is quite difficult with a success rate of about one in 10.
"There are problems with the genetics because if we don't completely rub off the memory of the cell that we've used then you get the incorrect expression of genes," he said.
"You don't get embryo forming and they won't result in pregnancy."
But Dr Fry says the success rate for cloning cattle represents a big improvement since Dolly the sheep was first cloned in Scotland in 1996.
"I think with Dolly it was a one in 277 to result in Dolly, so with cattle it has progressed a long way," he said. "At one in 10 cattle are one of the easiest to clone compared with other species.
"The first horse to be cloned was about one-in-300 transfers to get that foal."