Research team produces first cloned miniature pigs

A Taiwanese research team has produced the world’s first cloned miniature pigs, as well as improving a method used to clone animals, which only requires about one-third the manpower and one-sixth the cost of the previous approach.

Ju Jyh-chern (朱志成), a professor in National Chung Hsing University’s department of animal science’s reproductive biology laboratory, said most people have heard of Dolly the Sheep — the world’s first cloned sheep which was produced in 1997. The cloning method used at the time was somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

Although many researchers have since used the SCNT method to successfully produce cloned animals, the cost of the required equipment is high and it takes intensive training of more than a year for researchers to become skilled in the method, Ju said.