Scientists have developed a cheap and easy cloning method to let technicians create cloned embryos with equipment that could fit in a trailer and costs only a few thousand dollars, New Scientistmagazine reported today.
"It's so much simpler than anything we are doing today, it's dramatic," the magazine quoted Michael Bishop, ex-president of US cattle-cloning company Infigen as saying.
"It's a huge step toward roboticising the whole process."
Cloning advocates say it can be used by farmers to preserve the lines of prized livestock, and by protection groups to save endangered species. But opponents worry that cheaper and easier cloning could hasten the day when humans try to clone themselves.
To make a cloned embryo, technicians need an egg cell with no nucleus - the part that includes genetic material - so that they can add the genetic material from the animal they intend to clone.
Under the old system, technicians needed to guide an expensive microscopic needle into the egg cell to suck out the nucleus, a time-consuming process requiring expensive equipment and training.
In the new technique, developed by scientist Gabor Vajta of the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, they just slice eggs cells in half.
The halves that include the nucleus can be discarded. Two separate nucleus-free halves are fused together - along with the genetic material to be cloned - to make the equivalent of a whole cloned egg. A healthy looking calf has already been born in Australia using the new technique, and another is expected this week, New Scientistreported.
It said a team from the Endangered Wildlife Trust in Johannesburg had already tried out the equipment under field conditions, using a Bunsen burner on a laboratory bench to make a sterile working environment.