Scientists Have Produced Gene-Edited Animals To Serve As Super Dad Livestock

Technological advancement has reached a limit where scientists have been able to develop animals with their genetic codes edited, which could help serve the purpose they require. By following the pattern, researchers are able to produce super dad livestock or surrogate sires in mammals. The super dad livestock animals include mice, cattle, goats, and pigs, are able to make sperms that will contain the genetic coding of the donor livestock animal.

Genetic engineering advancement

The innovative technology used by the researchers contains hi-tech scientific gene-editing tools to remove the male fertility code in genetic material from the embryo of the fetal animal. The animal born would be sterile from birth, but after inducing a special injection of sperm-producing cells into the livestock mammal, the animal would begin production of sperms, which has been termed as super dad livestock.

By using this technique, scientists would be able to facilitate super dad livestock to produce offspring’s which will carry the genetic coding of elite and valuable animals like prize bulls. This step in genetic engineering also proves to be useful in enhancing the quality of livestock, which will later be used for consumption as food.

According to Professor Jon Oatley from the College of Veterinary Medicine of Washington State University, this production of super dad livestock will provide a massive positive impact, which will directly address the growing insecurity of food across the globe. By using genetic tests and editing, the issue could be tackled as livestock would require less water and food consumption along with a reduced intake of antibiotics to combat infections and diseases.

Genetic experimentation

The super dad livestock has been confirmed to have active donor sperm, by which they are able to sire health offspring without any issue that also carries the genetic material from the donor sperm. The experiments for super dad livestock have been done on small animals, but no large animal has been bred yet. Even though large-scales results are yet to be revealed, scientists are hopeful that mice experiments for super dad livestock have provided enough powerful evidence to further increase the intensity of the experimentation.

The recent results will provide the world with actual live proof that this technological advancement is real and can be sued in a way to help every individual across the world. The scientists are hopeful that this innovative genetic engineering of super dad livestock would help in increasing the productivity and feed to accommodate the growing worldwide population.

According to the researchers, surrogate sire or super dad livestock would also allow conservation and preserving of endangered species of animals. By using hi-tech genetic engineering, sperms of endangered species would be frozen, which would later be used to further breed the species. But the policymakers could prove to provide some hindrances in the speed of the process. The genetically modified animals made by using super dad livestock are yet to have clearance for mass consumption of humans as there are multiple concerns over the animal welfare, ethics, and safety of the product. The potential application of this technology will include chicken, pigs, and genetically modified hornless cows.

The ethical issues that might arise from human consumption of farming animals made by super dad livestock are being examined by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. The world is facing multiple problems in several societies due to food consumption, which would be easily solvable by using the technology of gene-editing. There has been no parameter set in which modification of genetics will be provided, which will be set depending on the progression of development and further researching.

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