Tullis Matson, handling director of Stallion AI Services near Whitchurch, thinks individuals ought to carry on from the debate surrounding cloning and said the innovation utilized while doing so is assisting produce happy and healthy animals.
Stallion AI was established in 2000 and is utilizing innovation for hereditary conservation and cloning animals such as horses, dogs and cats, by means of sibling business Gemini Genetics.
In a chat with podcast, The Graveyard Shift, Mr Matson said: “The cloning side can be a bit controversial – like when Dolly the sheep was born in 1996, but things have moved on.
“There are hundreds of animals being cloned – cats, dogs and horses. There is quite a long waiting list. When you lose a pet that can be very traumatic. Knowing there is a little bit of them still alive helps with the grieving process.
“The cloned dog we have here started her life as a cell and now she is a perfect, healthy animal. It is incredible to see what we can do.”
Stallion AI is likewise an international centre of quality for equine semen collection, processing, storage and circulation. In the previous twenty years its expert group has actually performed in excess of 20,000 collections from over 1,200 stallions.
A considerable percentage of these are uncommon types needing innovations to save them from termination, in addition to extremely important sport horses. This is where sibling business Gemini Genetics was developed – to make it possible for entire hereditary profile conservation of considerable horses by means of a little skin sample.
Mr Matson said: “The whole beauty about having horse genetics is shipping them around the world. Back in 2012 we sent about £70,000 worth of semen around the world to about seven different countries. Last year we sent £2.5 million to £3 million to 22 different countries.
“Now with Gemini Genetics, we can save the whole genetic profile of rare, endangered and elite equines, and produce exact genetic replicas for breed preservation or for sport and performance, via cloning. And this is all from a skin sample, rather than semen. It’s quite amazing to be generating new life in this way.”
Mr Matson has actually likewise established the charity Nature’s SAFE to protect the cells of threatened types worldwide.
“In one tank alone here, we have 166 different species which is quite incredible,” he said. “Southern white rhinos, Asian elephants and I think we did a Komodo dragon as well.
“We really believe this could be the last chance attempt for saving some species from extinction.
“There are about six or seven million species on the planet. There’s one million at risk, 40,000 critically endangered and roughly 50 to 100 species a day go extinct which is quite frightening. This is another way of conserving them.
“We are just banking them down at the moment, but in theory they can be brought back to life in 20, 30 or 1,000 years when these species are on the brink of extinction. We are really proud of what we are doing here.
“People can say it is messing with nature, but I think that has been said already. If we are at the cliff edge with many of these species, we have got to embrace every technology that is out there.”
