China's Second Cloned Calf in Good Condition

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 25, 2002

China's Second Cloned Calf in Good Condition

January 19 saw another cloned cow "Ke Ke" being born at 15:30 after the first cloned calf, wholly conducted with China��s cloning technology, died an hour later when she was born on January 18. The calf ��Ke Ke�� has been doing well since its birth at the Animal Embryo Project Center in Caoxian County, east China's Shandong Province.

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"Ke Ke" Doing Well

January 19 saw another cloned cow "Ke Ke" being born at 15:30 after the first cloned calf, wholly conducted with China's cloning technology, died an hour later when she was born on January 18. The calf "Ke Ke" has been doing well since its birth at the Animal Embryo Project Center in Caoxian County, east China's Shandong Province.

At the center, another 10 pregnant cows, part of the scientific experiment, are expected to give birth to cloned calves in the days to come.

Three phases for realizing the industrialization of cattle cloning

According to Professor Ma Shiyuan from Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, who carried out the embryo transplantation, to realize the industrialization of cattle cloning from the experiment period, we must get over three phases in five to seven years.

The three phases are as follows:

First, we must further improve the cloning technology. Only by raising the fecundation rate and cutting down the abortion rate can we realize the volume-production of cattle embryo and minimize the production cost.

Secondly, we must solve the problem on engineering alteration between experiment and large-scale factory-production. The uppermost problem is that the current cloning technology cannot meet the demands for large-scale production on cost minimization and output value amplification. It will need at least a year to go a step forward, Ma estimated.

Furthermore, the acceptance of consumers is the precondition for market development. In Ma's view of point, this is an economic issue but not a technological one and consumers will be pleased to buy cheap but not highly priced cloning products.

According to Ma's estimation, it will cost five to seven years on realizing the industrialization of cloning technology. And by the time as expected, the milk-cow industry in China will witness an inestimable change.

China's First Cloned Calf Confirmed Dead

Chinese scientists confirmed Saturday the death of China's first cloned calf, which was born at 9:25 pm Friday in Caoxian County, east China's Shandong Province.

The female calf died more than one hour after her birth at the Animal Embryo Project Center in Caoxian County, according to Saturday's China Youth Daily. Full Story

China's Second Cloned Calf Doing Well

China's second cloned calf, named "Keke" began walking Sunday morning after hours of medical treatment by scientists at the Shandong Zhongda Animal Embryo Engineering Center in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province.

Keke made its first "moo, moo" sound two minutes later after being born and drunk nearly 2 kilograms of milk within half an hour. Full Story

By PD Online staff member Huang Ying

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