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First Cloned Goat Dies 36 Hours After Birth
The world's first goat cloned from an adult's body cells died from defects in its lung development early yesterday morning after living 36 hours and three minutes.
The goat, named "Yuanyuan," was found breathing with difficulty on Saturday when scientists were conducting a normal health checkup on the animal.
Scientists concluded the problem was caused by abnormal lung development.
Professor Zhang Yong from the Northwest University of Science and Technology for Agriculture and Forestry, which cloned the goat, said the death of Yuanyuan was not unusual, citing the high death rate for all cloned animals in the world.
"This means that cloning technology leaves much room for improvement," he said.
Yuanyuan, the first goat cloned from somatic cells China, was born on June 16.
The grey goat, weighing 2.8 kilograms and 36 centimetres long, was cloned through a different procedure than that of Dolly, the sheep, in Britain in 1997, according to experts.
Zhang Yong said Yuanyuan was the result of combining a somatic cell of an adult goat and an egg cell of another one.
Early in January, Zhang and his research team picked a somatic cell from the ear of an adult goat to remove the cell nucleus.
Then they found an egg cell and replaced its nucleus with the one from the goat's ear.
"And we put the mixed cell into another goat's womb to bring Yuanyuan into the world," said Zhang.
Zhang revealed that another cloned goat is to be born later this month.
"We have pinned much hope on the second cloned goat for further research," said Zhang.
The research team is also waiting for the birth of a cloned ox later this year.
Last year, the university proposed cloning a panda.
But the proposal was dropped for lack of research experience.
Zhang and his team did not reveal any possibility of cloning a panda after this project, saying that the current cloning experiments were still being discussed and researched.
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