Exclusive. THE scientists who helped to create Dolly the sheep are expecting a pig to join the barnyard of cloned animals by the end of next year.
The so-called ''Millennium Pig'' is currently being developed by Roslin Bio-Med, the company formed earlier this year to commercialise the Roslin Institute's cloning technology. This process, technically known as Nuclear Transfer Technology (NTT), allowed the institute and linked company PPL Therapeutics to create Dolly, the world's first mammal cloned from an adult animal.
Unlike Dolly, the Millennium Pig will be created from fetal tissue rather than from the cells of an adult pig. It is hoped the creature will be the first of its species to be cloned.
''We are sure no one else has got there yet, but we do know that other groups around the world are working on this,'' Roslin Bio-Med chief executive Simon Best said.
Although it has not yet been decided whether the Millennium Pig will be male or female, Mr Best is already taking suggestions for names.
Cloned cows now number in the hundreds and exist in herds from Australia to the US and Europe.
Cloning pigs will allow scientists to modify them genetically so their organs can be transplanted into humans, a procedure known as xenotransplantation. Although pig kidneys and hearts are similar in size and physiology to those of humans, they are covered in a sugar-like enzyme that leads to about 90% of the organs being immediately rejected by the human body.
Through the use of Roslin's NTT technique, scientists believe they can remove the gene responsible for producing this enzyme. It might therefore be possible to create herds of such genetically-altered pigs, thus relieving the chronic shortage of suitable transplant organs throughout the world.
PPL Therapeutics has been licensed the rights to use NTT to produce human proteins from the milk of genetically-altered ruminants such as cows and sheep. Dolly was created in part to accelerate production of AAT, a chemical found in human blood and used to treat patients with cystic fibrosis.
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