Thursday, November 20, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
E.L. Miller Lecture Series
rof says embryo transplants commonplace
By Sondra Pickard
Senior Staff Writer
n 1932, scientists at Texas A&M
m to- implanted the embryo of a goat into
busy the reproductive tract of another,
which resulted in the birth of a
I ^^mlthy kid. The experiment was the
[^' second successful mammalian egg
'“PWlraiisfer ever recorded, but since
ig ha then, transferring mammalian em-
have brvos has become commonplace at
;t a( j ( A&M and around the world.
Duane Kraemer, A&M pro
fessor of veterinary physiology and
ph I macology, said the first Success-
arst-ful egg transfer was performed in
[ !r 1891 at Cambridge University with
rabbits.
for
ink. S
? Can:
ouble :
vavc [J
Bln 1951, he said, the science was
first applied to cattle, which are now
the most common animals used. It
took 20 years, however, before em
bryonic transfers could be applied
commercially.
Kraemer spoke on Wednesday as
part of the E. L. Miller Lecture Se
ries titled “Genetic Engineering: Im
proving or Interfering?” The pro
gram was sponsored by the
Memorial Student Center’s Political
Forum committee.
Kraemer has worked on various
aspects of embryo transfers since
1959, and in 1971, he performed the
embryo transfers that resulted in the
first purebred calves to be produced
by a commercial embryo transfer
company.
Kraemer defined embryo trans
fers as “the movement of pre-im
plantation embryos from the repro
ductive tract of the genetic mother,
or donor, to the reproductive tract
of the surrogate mother, or recipi
ent.”
When transferring embryos, he
said, the objective is to increase the
number of offspring from geneti
cally valuable females.
Some of the benefits of transfer
ring embryos Kraemer mentioned
include:
• The production of improved
livestock strains;
• The production of animal mod
els for research;
• The treatment of human infer
tility; and
• The preservation
gered species.
of endan-
To begin the process, Kraemer
said, eggs are fertilized by artificial
insemination. The embryos are then
transferred — each one to a differ
ent recipient.
Kraemer said the resulting off
spring are not clones, but rather full
brothers and sisters.
To successfully complete an em
bryo transfer, Kraemer said the re
productive cycles of both the donor
and recipients must be syn
chronized, thereby maximizing the
possibility of conception.
“Basically,” Kraemer said, “you
need a group of cows that are all in
heat at the same time.”
Researcher stresses safety of genetic vaccines
najor ;
By Christi Daugherty
Staff Writer
he importance of preventing in
fectious disease and the existence of
fmeral regulations should lead to a
greater acceptance of genetically en
gineered vaccines, a Baylor College
of Medicine researcher said
Wednesday.
■Dr. Saul Kit, the head biochemist
in the Division of Biochemical Viro-
»v at the medical center in Hous
ton, spoke on the safety of genetic
engineering as part of the E.L.
Miller Lecture Series.
■The lecture series is being spon
sored by the Memorial Student Cen
ter’s Political Forum committee, and
continues all day today.
■ Kit said that despite fears to the
contrary, the new genetic vaccines
are proving to be safer than conven
tionally developed vaccines.
■ He explained that although many
people think of conventional vac
cines as completely safe, the only
outbreaks of the polio virus in recent
years were traced back to polio vacci
nations. Sometimes a conventional
vaccine becomes unstable and re
verts to virulence, he said.
He said several problems under
score the need for an increase in ge
netic engineering technology. These
include the existence of viruses such
as influenza and St. Louis Encephali
tis, and the dramatic increase in the
number of AIDS cases.
“AIDS is exploding into a world
But a vaccine doesn’t exist, and he
admitted that the Baylor College of
Medicine hasn’t yet been granted
permission to experiment with AIDS
and genetic engineering, although
he said he expects it will be soon.
Meanwhile, infectious diseases re
main the greatest problem for hu-
“People are going to make noble comparisons between
genetic engineering and nuclear disasters. They’ll say
science is enticing but a potential exists for disaster. ”
— Dr. Saul Kit of the Baylor College of Medicine.
wide epidemic,” Kit said. “AIDS
cases have been reported in 74 coun
tries.
“Through October of 1986, AIDS
has struck over 26,000 adults and
300 children in the United States.
Fifteen thousand of these have died,
and the number is expected to dou
ble in the next 14 months.”
Even if a preventive vaccine al
ready existed, he said, the number
of those afflicted with AIDS would
reach more than 200,000 by 1990,
and 100,000 of those would die.
mans and animals, he said, especially
in Third World countries where the
majority of the population is either
not innoculated at all, or is innoc-
ulated improperly.
Science has been relatively suc
cessful in eradicating some viruses,
most notably smallpox and polio, he
said. But even the successes have of
ten had a darker side.
“The last reported case of small
pox was in Somalia in 1977,” Kit
said. “But in some countries the
smallpox vaccination actually be-
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came more dangerous than the dis
ease.”
He said many people died because
of problems from the vaccination.
“Shortcomings such as these can
be overcome by genetic engi
neering,” Kit said.
Kit said the potential always exists
for danger with conventional vac
cines, while genetically engineered
vaccines would not likely revert to vi
rulence, and would not have that
particular danger.
“Genetically engineered vaccines
are flagged so they can be traced,”
he said. “If it turned on the host and
became virulent, the cause could be
traced back to the vaccine.”
He said there is no similar way to
trace conventional vaccines.
Most people fear genetic engi
neering simply because they do not
understand it, he said.
“People are going to make noble
comparisons between genetic engi
neering and nuclear disasters,” he
said. “They’ll say science is enticing
but a potential exists for disaster.
“My message is that we’re
thoughtful human beings, and we
needn’t be afraid of science and
technology.”
Photo by Greg Bailey
Smoke ’Em Out
Laurence Alvarado gets some advice Wednesday from Karen
Barnett, left, and Allison Hendrix on how to help a friend stop
smoking. The Great American Smokeout takes place today.
Verification ends Friday
for senior ring deadline
Wednesday is the last day to order
Aggie rings this semester, but stu
dents must submit their names for
eligibility verification by Friday, a
ring office spokesman said. Verifica
tion should be completed by Tues
day.
However, assistant ring manager
Lynn Scott said that ring orders will
be taken again starting about Jan. 7.
She said if students order their
rings by the end of January, they
should still receive them before
graduation.
Rings that are ordered by the
Wednesday deadline should arrive
by the beginning of April, Scott said.