World's First Cloned Horse

by Dr. Chris

June 13, 2010 Texas A&M University announced this week that it successfully cloned a horse using a never before performed technique. The foal was cloned using oocytes (egg cells) from a live manner, making it the first clone of its type in the world.

Kit Knotts, is the owner of the new foal called Mouse. Dr. Katrin Hinrichs, an Equine Reproductive expert lead the team of researchers who performed the cloning.

Dr. Hinrich's lab holds the claim of having the first cloned foal in North America. So far they have cloned 12 foals, but Mouse, was the first foal cloned using this new technique.

So far, there are only three labs/companies that have cloned a horse. Texas A&M, Viagen, and the Cesare Galli lab in Italy.

Mouse, being cloned, is an identical twin to the original horse, a Lippizan stallion, named Marc.

According to Dr. Hinrichs, this was the first foal produced using oocytes (egg cells) from live horses. They recovered the eggs from research horse using the same method used to obtain eggs from women during in vitro fertilization.


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