Test tube calves

Cloning experiments are being conducted in Russia

Anna Oreshkina, IF24.ru According to Rosstat, for the year from February 2016 to February 2017, $116 million worth of live cattle were imported to Russia.

Australia and the Netherlands became the main suppliers of highly productive cows and bulls. At the same time, about a third of imported animals die from climatic shock, various injuries and for other reasons – these are the statistics of the All-Russian Research Institute of Breeding. It would be possible to solve the problems of high cost, acclimatization and, finally, import substitution by developing agrobiostartaps within the country. New technologies, such as embryo transplantation or cloning, can make it possible to update the herd in a short time, increase the productivity of animals. They have already proven their effectiveness, but the paradox is that there are few teams in Russia engaged in the development and implementation of these technologies. There are about 300 companies operating in the embryotransfer market in the USA, and less than a dozen in our country. The reason is that many farmers are wary of interfering in such a sensitive area, and spending on innovations during the crisis period.

ECO for cows

The cost of one foreign netel is about 250 thousand rubles. With the money paid for one Australian cow, you can make about five embryo transplants in your home farm and soon get five calves with predictable qualities: the egg and seed from animals that have proven their commercial effectiveness are taken as a basis – giving the largest milk yield or the largest increase in meat ... In addition, the embryo transfer avoids a long period of acclimatization which is inevitable in case of importation of an animal: in Russia, not only weather conditions differ from Australian ones, but also methods of feeding cattle; and reduces the likelihood of importation of dangerous diseases.

"By introducing IVF technologies in animal husbandry, we will definitely be able to get a good result on milk, meat and other tasks that take decades to solve using traditional methods," says the Doctor of Medical Sciences Vladimir Belyakov, CEO of the company "Westtrail LTD", which unites several biostartaps under the brand "Novabiotek".

One of the directions is implemented by the young company "Artembriogen". It focuses on the industrial production of embryos of farm animals, technologies to improve the reproduction results of breeding animals. Finally, this is the first project that deals with the cloning of highly valuable and rare animals and the creation of animal models of human pathological conditions.

The company was established in 2016, but immediately received successful results in the implementation of its activities. According to the founder of the project Alexandra Kuznetsova, in 1.5 months, while working in a large agricultural holding in Tatarstan, it was possible to obtain almost 2500 cattle embryos – a result that was unattainable by Russian companies for such a period up to this point.

According to Roman Kulikov, who heads the direction "Biotechnology in agriculture and industry" in the biomedical cluster "Skolkovo", such results will allow Tatarstan to become an exporter of breeding animals in 3-4 years. In developed countries, the price of a clone can start from $ 15 thousand for a high-value bull or cow (Professor Hwang from South Korea has a cat or dog clone worth about $ 100 thousand).

Clones and Unicorn

"It seems that with your help we touched the unicorn," said the CEO of the UK Poultry Group Cherkizovo Sergey Polyakov at a meeting of the Board of the Skolkovo Foundation in November 2016.

Cherkizovo Group is an industrial partner of a startup that, with the support of the Skolkovo innovation cluster, is currently engaged in creating genetically modified laboratory animal testers and models of human pathological conditions. The company has its own developments in the production of media for the cultivation and vitrification (ultrafast freezing) of embryos, technologies for micromanipulation of gametes and individual parts of embryos. Projects are being actively developed to create experimental animals with an edited genome for the development of therapy for oncological diseases and viral infection based on antigen-specific cells of the immune system.

According to Alexander Kuznetsov, the results of the project have been repeatedly presented at major events and received the highest ratings from top officials of federal agricultural holdings and government officials, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Minister of Agriculture Alexandra Tkachev.

The technology of cloning and creating high-value animals with an edited genome is of great interest. The inspirer and scientific director of the company's team is a world-famous scientist Gabor White. As a result of joint work on the second of March, for the first time in Russia, 4 cow clones were obtained using the method of "manual cloning" of White (HMC – hand made clonning). The experiment was carried out with the help of the Embryoplan and Embryovisor incubators created in Artembriogen. Devices and technologies in the future can form the basis of a platform for obtaining high-value and rare animals for solving agricultural problems. In addition, according to the developers, the use of these technologies opens up new opportunities for the development of new approaches in biomedicine, the development and testing of pharmacological and biotechnological drugs, the creation of donor organs in the body of an immunocompatible animal, the study of the causes and mechanisms of the development of severe human diseases.

As for the agricultural sector, the cloning services market in Russia is still insignificant, but it is developing rapidly.

"These approaches will increase the production of high–quality milk, increase the number of breeding heads and high-value animals, which means solving issues of food security and import substitution. In addition, it is necessary to create projects for the conservation of rare animals, such as the Amur tiger," says Alexander Kuznetsov.

By the way, the head of Westtrade LTD, Vladimir Belyakov, is a participant in an international project to clone a mammoth from DNA remains found in permafrost in Yakutia.

When asked what motivates him, Belyakov answers: "The desire to show the triumph of technology. In addition, a mammoth is as much as 12 tons of meat. When I saw a piece of mammoth meat, which is 62 thousand years old, I thought it was a frozen steak, they are so similar."

Followers of Dolly the Sheep

While Russia is wary of reproducing a herd from a test tube, China is taking a leading position. An animal cloning Center is being built in Tianjin: This is a joint project of Sinica (a daughter of the BoyaLife Group, one of the leading Chinese companies in the field of stem cell and biomedicine), the Institute of Molecular Medicine of Peking University, the International Academy of Biomedicine and the South Korean Sooam Biotech Research Foundation (has experience in cloning dogs for the needs of special services). After the opening – and it is planned for 2017 – the center will become the largest in the world. A laboratory, a cloning center, a genetic bank and an exhibition space will be located on 14 thousand square meters. Total investments are estimated at almost $500 million. The consortium plans to reproduce 100 thousand heads of cattle (5% of the meat needs of the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire) with the prospect of growth up to 1 million heads. Head of BoyaLife Xu Xiaochun stated that cloned beef is the most delicious meat he has ever tasted. Along with cows, the Center plans to clone thoroughbred horses, dogs (for police needs and commercial reproduction of pets), rare and extinct animals.

In addition to the practical task of providing the population of the most numerous country in the world with food, the founders of the company have an ambitious goal – to turn the idea of China as a copycat country. The Chinese corporation BGI has been successfully cloning pigs for a long time, the "productivity" of the pig cloning factory is about 500 individuals per year. There the genome is decoded, mutation variants are studied. The technology of animal organ transplantation to humans is being prepared and medical preparations are being tested. The task is to decode the genome of a million animals, a million plants and a million people.

All for one

One of the most profitable areas is the cloning of thoroughbred horses. A purebred animal with good athletic performance can cost up to $2 million. Crestview Genetics, founded by the famous equestrian polo player Adolfo Cambiaso and his two partners, cloned 45 horses, including 25 copies of a mare named Aiken Kura, with whom Cambiaso won competitions. One of the "copies" was sold at auction for $ 800 thousand. In December last year, the Dolfino team led by Adolfo Cambiaso, which had 6 clones of the same mare, came to the championship title. Cloning technologies, despite the great controversy they cause, could well become a commercial service in Russia. According to the Director of Science of the cluster of biological and medical technologies of the Skolkovo Foundation, Yuri Nikolsky, the development in In Russia, the technology of cloning farm animals is a matter of the foreseeable future.

"Maybe in 2-3 years we will see Russian farms that will start using it in animal husbandry and aquaculture. At least several agricultural holdings will be able to develop this direction, but it is premature to name specific names and organizations," the expert says.

The Skolkovo Foundation intends to support startups in this field.

"Cloning of animals is becoming more widespread. Many countries, moreover, are introducing a ban on cloning for food purposes – such a ban was approved by the European Parliament in September 2015. The document assumes, among other things, a ban on the import of meat of cloned animals. In Russia, so far, this direction is facing problems not so much of an ethical as of a technical order – there are very few specialists, laboratories and farms who would be willing to work in this direction," the managing partner of the Kirikov Group consulting company is sure Daniil Kirikov. – On the one hand, a startup in this area can contribute to the development of technologies. On the other hand, its commercial success is very doubtful – cloning of animals is an expensive and time-consuming process and simply will not pay off. Investors may be interested in the project – and even expect the development of such a direction, but so far it is not worth waiting for them to be profitable. And it is unlikely that such products will be in great demand in the foreseeable future, since the attitude towards it is even more negative than ambiguous."

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  26.06.2017