By Sean Henahan, Access Excellence 

Following the trend to announce dramatic scientific developments at press conferences rather than in a peer-reviewed journal, officials at  ABS Global, Inc. a provider of bovine reproductive services and technologies, introduced a healthy, 6-month-old bull calf named "Gene" to the media first.

Company scientists claim the calf is a result of a technique the company has developed over the past decade for cloning animals from embryo cells. This would make "Gene" closer to Polly, the transgenic sheep clone than Polly, the first animal cloned from adult animal cells. The company also claims the ability to clone animals from adult cells. 

As in the case of Polly, the successful creation of transgenic cows would provide a living platform with which to generate rare and expensive human proteins such as those used to treat hemophilia, or even to produce vital organs for cross-species transplantation. 

Other laboratories have reported the cloning of  mice, rabbits, cows, monkeys and sheep from embryo cells. The ABS company claims its cloning process is "significantly more efficient" than other processes previously announced.

The proprietary process evidently involves the cloning of  stem cells removed from calf embryos. Stem cell cloning has been something of a holy grail among biologists, as the potent cells have characteristics that make them ideal for several application including cloning organisms.  The company apparently uses a secret technique to transform the cells into a permanent cell line. These cells are then placed in a host egg cell which has had  its own genetic material removed. After a few cell divisions, the embryo is implanted in a host female and carried to term. 

"Cloning and the related technologies of (ABS spin-off) Infigen offer tremendous promise for enhancing the quality, consistency and nutritional value of dairy and beef products, and have promising applications for the transgenic production of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and xenotransplantation products," said Marc van't Noordende, chief executive officer of ABS.

The research community tended to greet the announcement with polite silence, pending publication of the results in a reputable journal. Cattlemen's groups, for their part, questioned whether the new method of bull production was more cost-effective than time-honored methods of breeding cattle.