Determining the Sex of a Bovine Embryo

Farmers would love to know the sex of their cattle long before they are born. Dr. Jim Weber of the University of Maine is planning to tell them. Today, embryos are commonly harvested, frozen, and transported to waiting buyers around the world who use them to improve their herds. Dr. Weber estimates that an embryo of a known sex could bring a price four to five times higher than one with no identified sex. Buyers would know what they were getting and would avoid the cost of impregnating a surrogate cow, feeding it until the calf was born, and then discovering that the animal was not of the desired sex. With funding support from the Center for Innovation in Biotechnology, Dr. Weber is developing an anti-body against a protein that only occurs in male bovines. If development is successful, this anti-body will allow farmers to determine the sex of embryos very early in the development process. The new test will be much safer for the embryo than the more invasive methods currently available. If Dr. Weber's method proves successful with bovines, a next step would be to extend it to other kinds of animals.