November 24, 2015

New cloning facility in China capable of producing beef cattle

The future of China's cattle production may soon find some of its supplies originating from a groundbreaking - and highly controversial - source.

A deal to set up the world's biggest commercial animal cloning facility in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin have been signed by local scientists, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Among other animals including dogs and racehorses, the center will clone beef cattle, a livestock which Chinese farmers struggled to produce sufficient stocks to meet demand, said Xu Xiaochun, the board chairman of Boyalife Group.

Boyalife's subsidiary, Sinica, has signed the agreement for the facility with the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Area (TEDA) this month.

Together with Peking University's Institute of Molecular Medicine, the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine, and South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, Sinica will jointly built the cloning center with an investment of about US$31.3 million.

Currently under construction, the facility is expected to be operational by the first half of 2016 and will produce 100,000 cattle embryos a year in the early phase, according to Xu. Production would eventually be raised to one million.

The center will also be developed with a gene storage area and a museum, Xu added.

The new Tianjin facility reflects growing interests from companies to invest in cloning which could meet commercial demands including those pertaining to animal husbandry.