Gene Editing To Produce 'Super Dad' Livestock (bbc.com) 46
Scientists have produced gene-edited animals they say could serve as "super dads" or "surrogate sires." The BBC reports: The pigs, goats, cattle and mice make sperm carrying the genetic material of donor animals. The researchers used a hi-tech gene editing tool to knock out a male fertility gene in animal embryos. The animals were born sterile, but began producing sperm after an injection of sperm-producing cells from donor animals. The technique would enable surrogate males to sire offspring carrying the genetic material of valuable elite animals such as prize bulls, said a US-UK team. This would be a step towards genetically enhancing livestock to improve food production, they added. Further reading: EurekAlert
Sterile males produce DONOR sperm (Score:2)
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But I wonder whether the researchers have thought through the reaction of those who currently make tonnes of money by selling horse semen at insane prices.
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"But I wonder whether the researchers have thought through the reaction of those who currently make tonnes of money by selling horse semen at insane prices."
That's exactly their reason!
Instead of jerking off their million dollar horse, which can only be done a certain amount of times, this allows hundreds of sterile horses to produce the very same insanely priced semen.
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But if the amount of genetically identical sperm which can be produced is no longer limited, there's no reason for the price to remain insane, and the new value of (price per millilitre) * (millilitres produced) may be an order of magnitude less than the old value.
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"But if the amount of genetically identical sperm which can be produced is no longer limited, there's no reason for the price to remain insane,"
That's where the new Spermoid Copy Protection Law comes in.
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"What better way to do that than to first make all the men in the world infertile (perhaps through a pandemic mandated vaccine program?), then reprogram men's reproductive systems to produce his semen?"
You mean BUD?
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Most farmers, do not use this as their main source of income, only a supplemental bonus.
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So you first create a super cow that gets fatter faster produces more milk and eats less food. Then you patent the gene and each cow is licensed. Before the patent expires (about 3 years prior) you release the disease that wipes them out. Oh dear, emergency call up the Government and they fund the research i
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Imagine spiking someone unsuspecting with it as a cruel joke
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Certainly a crime. Unauthorised medical procedure, fraud, in some jurisdictions it might even be sexual assault.
Re:Sterile males produce DONOR sperm (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly this!!!!!
1. fertile males will be extremely rare and expensive
2. genetics will be copyrighted and it will be against the law to just breed animals
3. overall genetic variety of the livestock will be non-existent. an epidemic will kill off the entire livestock of large areas all at once
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Your analysis:
"The summary forgets to include the most critical point of the article. The GE males don't produce their own sperm, they produce the sperm of whatever individual male they are injected with."
What you analyzed:
"The pigs, goats, cattle and mice make sperm carrying the genetic material of donor animals. The researchers used a hi-tech gene editing tool to knock out a male fertility gene in animal embryos. The animals were born sterile, but began producing sperm after an injection of sperm-producin
Dad jokes (Score:5, Funny)
But do they tell super dad jokes?
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perfect solution (Score:2)
thought about this long and hard and I can't think of anything that could possibly go wrong with this. let's move forward.
genetic diversity (Score:2)
Yeah, they've heard of it but it can easily be dismissed as a concept with Darwin's baggage, a malevolent scheme by scientists to prevent progress, and any other assorted ills that get in the way of profit.
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Well, that profit would turn south if their chosen 'super dad' lands on the wrong side of susceptibility to a pathogen. A pathogen that might have wiped out 5% of livestock maybe gets to wipe out 90% instead (if everyone jumped onboard and took this strategy to the ultimate conclusion of all livestock being clones of the 'best' livestock).
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We've destroyed the majority of countless species to make room for a clone army of beef machines. I like beef but I hope we figure out how to cultivate it in a greenhouse or something without this rube-goldberg method of growing it on animals with brains and eyeballs.
Destroying Genetic Diversity (Score:5, Insightful)
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Large number of cattle farmers will be buying sperm from high-quality specimens. And a smaller, but significant, number of breeders will be trying to produce high-quality specimens whose sperm to sell.
In fact, we might be seeing MORE breeders, since this mechanism allows them far greater production than just breeding a si
Re: Destroying Genetic Diversity (Score:2)
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This isn't actually as big a problem as you'd think, because there's still a motive to improve and innovate. The situation won't be much different from what we see in crops right now.
Yeah, that's the concern (and why the banana reference). There's alarm calls going out that our crops and herds have too low genetic diversity today. This development might make it worse.
My understanding is farmers get sperm from a stunningly small number of stud animals (a few hundred for all cattle, something like that). Turns out, farmers value consistency a lot, much more than I would have expected. It makes sense: it's got to be easier to raise a large herd if all the animals grow at the same rate, res
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Indeed. The whole system evolved to ensure diversity. That indicates considerable evolutionary pressure to do so, i.e. massive problems if you do not have it or reduce it. The usual short-sighted greed at work...
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The problem with that idea is that evolution can only produce certain results. Animals don't have FedEx so they can't mail jism. The only way a bull has to inseminate a cow is fucking her. If Cows evolved sufficiently they would have by-mail semen delivery, and they'd be self-inseminating from the best bulls.
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I do not think so. The "best bulls" are a small set that boosts profits short-term but long-term may make the entire species non-viable. Remember that the species is already optimized for not having that FedEx possibility.
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Hopefully by then we will have developed decent and affordable lab grown meat of some kind.
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FTFY
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Are politicians delicious? I've never tried them. I imagine they have an unpleasant mouthfeel and leave a pretty nasty aftertaste.
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I suspect they are poisonous. I certainly would not recommend eating them.
However, GM politicians might be bred to self-isolate (cf Irish cabinet) permanently, and/or to be completely incapable of speech. Other traits could also be optimised: being infertile* could be high on the list of desirable traits.
* That is infertile not infantile - not that many can tell the difference.
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Just look at what is happening to Bananas. Almost all of the ones we eat are descended from one parent. Now there is a disease that is attacking them. There is ZERO biodivercity in Bananas. They risk doing the same with these genetic monsters.
I generally buy all my meat direct from the farmer and it is mostly Rare Breed varieties. I had a half leg of Gloucester Old Spot Pork at the weekend. Really, really tasty.
There is more to breeding than volume of food from huge tastless animals. Sorry Nope not going to
Don't forget cost (Score:2)
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This is a very bad idea. While everyone will want the sperm (and eggs) from the most successful pairing, it will quickly remove genetic diversity from the system and create a race of animals that are all susceptible to the same pathogen. It won't be to the same level as, say, the banana issue. But one can imagine what will happen when the majority of our dairy cattle come from just a couple genetic groups. Or our chickens, or pigs.
This is already a problem. Most dairy cattle are offspring of just a few prize winning bulls. The return on investment for raising male dairy cows is typically negative. There just isn't economic incentive to diversify the gene pool.
calling this right now (Score:1)
Child Support (Score:2)
I don't get it (Score:2)
Wouldn't artificial insemination get the farmer the same desired result? And a good deal cheaper too.
All I can guess is this is a way to work around rules for race horses that they must be naturally conceived?
Probably should RTFM but that is the immediate question about this. What does it get you?