HONOLULU, July 22, 1998 -- The first reproducible cloning of a mammal from adult cells, which has successfully yielded three generations and more than 50 identical cloned mice, is reported in the July 23 Nature by an international team of scientists, lead by Ryuzo Yanagimachi, Ph.D., of the University of Hawaii.

The distinctive cloning technology, described as the Honolulu technique, could be more viable for the production of drugs using transgenic animals than earlier techniques because of its efficiency of reproducibility and, when used in genetic and embryonic development studies, will shed new light on the cellular and molecular activities involved in aging and diseases such as cancer, AIDS, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. The technology has been licensed to the biotechnology company ProBio America, Inc., for commercialization and to test it for expanded uses.

The investigators anticipate that due to similarities between development in mammals the technique will be applicable to larger animals. For example, efficient and accurate cloning can improve the reliability and safety of reproducing transgenic mammals, such as cattle, pigs and sheep, that can be used in the economical production of lower cost protein-based pharmaceuticals. The technique may also be useful for cloning wild or endangered species in a controlled environment.

"Our study validates animal cloning, which we did using an injection method and adult cells. Our method differs substantially from previous techniques. Earlier procedures generated clones either by injection or fusion of embryonic or fetal cells or by the fusion of adult cells, which is how the sheep Dolly was created," explains Dr. Yanagimachi, the paper's senior author. He is a professor in the Department of Anatomy and Reproductive Biology at the John A. Bur
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Contact: Ernie Knewitz
ernie.knewitz@noonanrusso.com
212-696-4455, x 204
Noonan/Russo Communications
22-Jul-1998