Geoffrey Koch is a Portland, Ore.-based science writer who has written for The Dallas Morning News, ScienceNOW, Portland Monthly and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @geoffreykoch. He contributed this article on behalf of the SVF Foundation to Live Science'sExpert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
A few short miles from the fabled oceanfront mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, a quiet effort has been underway for years to save a commodity that might be more valuable than any industrialist's fortune, past or present: genetic material from vanishing livestock breeds.
Recently, deposits of this genetic material have increased to an unusual bank, the SVF Foundation, with vaults containing not cash and gold, but cryopreserved animal embryos, semen and blood. Fueling the increase is one of the first successful applications of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for rare livestock breeds anywhere in the United States, if not the world, according to Dorothy Roof, SVF's laboratory supervisor.
IVF — a procedure in which an egg and sperm are combined in a laboratory dish and the resulting embryo is transferred to a uterus — has transformed human medicine. More than 5 million human babies have been born thanks to the technique since the late 1970s, according to the International Committee for the Monitoring of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ICMART). Though it's now a mainstream fertility procedure, stories of the promise and occasional perils associated with IVF still routinely receive media coverage.
But IVF also has a long history in veterinary medicine and animal research. For example, "test tube" rabbits were produced as far back as the 1950s. More recently, IVF has been used to help threatened and endangered populations of wild animals such as cheetahs.
Read more: As Ancient Livestock Disappear, Frozen Embryos Restore Ancient Breeds
A few short miles from the fabled oceanfront mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, a quiet effort has been underway for years to save a commodity that might be more valuable than any industrialist's fortune, past or present: genetic material from vanishing livestock breeds.
Recently, deposits of this genetic material have increased to an unusual bank, the SVF Foundation, with vaults containing not cash and gold, but cryopreserved animal embryos, semen and blood. Fueling the increase is one of the first successful applications of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for rare livestock breeds anywhere in the United States, if not the world, according to Dorothy Roof, SVF's laboratory supervisor.
IVF — a procedure in which an egg and sperm are combined in a laboratory dish and the resulting embryo is transferred to a uterus — has transformed human medicine. More than 5 million human babies have been born thanks to the technique since the late 1970s, according to the International Committee for the Monitoring of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ICMART). Though it's now a mainstream fertility procedure, stories of the promise and occasional perils associated with IVF still routinely receive media coverage.
But IVF also has a long history in veterinary medicine and animal research. For example, "test tube" rabbits were produced as far back as the 1950s. More recently, IVF has been used to help threatened and endangered populations of wild animals such as cheetahs.
Read more: As Ancient Livestock Disappear, Frozen Embryos Restore Ancient Breeds