by The scientists based in Australia said on Thursday that they had produced the world’s first Kangaroo-Embryo by fertilization and praised in vitro as an important step in the direction of saving threatened marsupials.
The team, led by the University of Queensland, said it used the technology about Eastern gray kangaroos-welk number in the millions-with the goal of ultimately using IVF for Scarcer Marsupials.
“Australia is the home of the greatest diversity of Puideldierse fauna on the planet, but it also has the highest extrincing percentage of mammals,” said lead researcher Andrini in a statement.
“Our ultimate goal is to support the preservation of endangered marsupials such as Koalas, Tasmanian Devils, Northern Hairy Bombats and the Opossums of Leadbeater.”
Scientists produced the embryos through a technique in which a single sperm is injected directly into an adult egg.
“Because Eastern gray kangaroos are overcrowded, we have collected their eggs and sperm for use as a model to adjust the embryo technologies that have already been applied to pets and people,” Gambini said. “We now refine techniques to collect, cultivate and maintain marsupians and sperm.”
With the right cooperation, financing and technical progress, an IVF-assisted marsupial animal birth can be possible within ten years, the researcher said.
All the number of Kangaroo pairs fluctuates between 30 million and 60 million in Australia, and they are often cleared to keep populations under control.
The animals have a “tree and bust” population cycle – When food is in abundance after a good wet season, their number can with tens of millions of balloon. But some other marsupials are much more precarious.
It is estimated that there are only 20,000 to 50,000 Tasmanian devils in the wild, for example of no less than 150,000 before a mysterious face tumor disease was struck for the first time in the mid -1990s.
The Kangaroo IVF study was published in the Peer-Reviewed Journal reproductive, Fertility and Development.
