He founded “Maya” and the world’s first cloned polar wolf.

Chinese biotechnology company Sinogene was responsible for cloning the female of this species, which is listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Chinese state media reported.

The cloning was announced by the company in mid-September, one hundred days after the animal was born.

According to those responsible for the project, “Yeast” is in good health in a company laboratory located in Jiangsu province in eastern China.

his birth The world’s first cloned wild arctic wolf is a milestone for the application of cloning technology. Some experts say it is of great importance for the conservation of rare and endangered animals and biodiversity.

“We started a research collaboration with Harbin Polarland to save the endangered animal. [un parque temático en la provincia de Heilongjiang, en el noreste de China] “It’s about cloning the polar wolf in 2020,” Mi Jidong, managing director of Beijing-based Sinogene, said at a press conference.

“After two years of painstaking effort, the arctic wolf has been successfully cloned. It is the first of its kind in the world,” he said.

Cloning Details

donor cell a Skin sample of a Canadian female arctic wolf, also called “Maya”, According to the company spokespersons told BBC Mundo.

By the way, oocyte -female germ cells produced in the ovaries- a bitch race unspecified and pregnancy developed breed dog Beagle announced Zhao Jianping, deputy director of Sinogene.

According to the Global Times, Zhao said scientists had implanted a total of 85 embryos into the wombs of seven female beagles.

The expert added that the choice of female dog to impregnate the clone was due to genetic similarities between both species.

“Maya” will be transferred to Harbon Polarland after some time and will not be included with other arctic wolves originally living in that place due to the possibility of not adapting to living together in packs.

repairs

Some scientists outside of the “Yeast” cloning project have raised technical and ethical questions about the procedure.

Sun Quanhui, a scientist with the World Animal Protection Organization, told the Global Times newspaper that cloning technology has come a long way since its inception, but it is still being perfected and there is still a lot to research in the discovery phase. aspects like potential health risks associated with cloned animals.

Cloning for Sun should be considered only for endangered species, or for those that are extinct in the wild and only specimens survive in captivity.

China has made announcements in the past about advances in cloning technology, an area where two genetically identical primates cloned with the same technique used with the famous Dolly the sheep recorded their birth in 2018.

The country also came under harsh criticism in 2018 after the case of He Jianku, the Chinese scientist who created the first genetically modified babies, became known.

The scientist, who was sentenced to three years in prison in 2019, was released last April.

The Asian country’s authorities assure that He Jianku violated the legislation after conducting experiments on human embryos to try to protect them against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The scandal has prompted Chinese authorities to review their regulations on human genetic modification, which requires nationwide approval for clinical research in this field or other “high-risk biomedical technologies.”