Animal Cloning: Fighting Bull Cloned in Spain

May 20th, 2010 - 2:11 am ICT by Angela Kaye Mason  

May 19 (THAINDIAN NEWS) For the first time is history, scientists in Spain are claiming that they have created the first fighting bull clone. The name of the bull calf is “Got” or “Glass” in Valencian, and it was ‘born’ on Tuesday. The leader of the team which cloned Got, Vicentre Torrent, who is a specialist in veterinary genetics, said that he is in hopes that Got will have the same ‘fierce traits’ that his ‘father’, Vasito has.

According to the specialist, this is a scientific landmark which will open the way for a ’tissue bank’ which could save species of animals which are in critic danger of becoming extinct. Got was born from a friesian cow at a ranch in the province of northern Spain known as Palncia. Torrent, who works with the Valencia Veterinary Research Foundation shared that it had taken three years for his team to find a way to preserve the “valuable bull genes”, so that they could be used for the cloning.

The method of cloning used for this research was called ‘nuclear transfer’ which involves DNA from the bull being inserted into the eggs of the cow in order to create embryos. The embryos are then placed in surrogate cows. This is basically the same way ‘Dolly’ the sheep was cloned in 1996. A camel was cloned in Dubai in April of last year , and Cloned sniffer dog began service in South Korea customs in July of last year as well, according to BBC News.

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