Argentina Making Breakthrough Advances In Cloning Of Exotic Species
Argentina Making Breakthrough Advances In Cloning Of Exotic Species
BUENOS AIRES, Sept 14 (BERNAMA-NNN-XINHUA) -- A group of Argentinean scientists are working to preserve the planet's biodiversity by making advances in the cloning of exotic species such as the Asiatic Cheetah, a species in danger of extinction.
"We are working on non-native species as a first step. Our main objective is to avoid the extinction of indigenous species, such as the jaguar," said Daniel Salamone, associate professor of agronomy at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and a member of Conicet, Argentina's foremost scientific body.
"The Buenos Aires zoo has a genetic data bank in which all of its species are preserved, both indigenous and exotic ones. We took frozen skin cells from that data bank to produce cheetah embryos. We were successful, making this a valid new cloning technique," explained Salamone to Xinhua in a recent interview.
According to the scientist, this technique allows for the production of embryos with a great number of stem cells. The next step for the team will be to produce sperm and eggs from these cells.
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