Gene Maps: Building a Better Cow

Gene Maps: Building a Better Cow

Gene Maps: Building a Better Cow

Recent discoveries about the genetic code of animals could be used to raise cattle, pigs and shrimp more efficiently, resulting in significant economic gains for the $240 billion worldwide meat industry.

"We are now at the cusp of some breakthroughs in animal science that will offer enormous business opportunities," said Clifton Baile, the CEO of ProLinia, a genomics startup company, and a professor of animal science at the University of Georgia.

The developments in animal genetics build upon discoveries made through the Human Genome Project, which completed a map of the human genome in June 2000. The human genome shares about 85 percent of the genes of many animals, such as cattle. That genetic overlap allowed scientists to begin discovering which genes made animals sick, more muscular or even more fertile.

Take, for example, Sygen International, which is identifying genes that allow shrimp to be raised in normally uninhabitable cold water.

Currently the worldwide shrimp market is worth more than $6 billion annually, according to Sygen. Some 80 percent of that revenue comes from sales in Asia, where the water is much warmer than in the United States. Another 40 to 50 percent of the total market, then, is brought back to the United States, making it the country's top seafood import.

What if the shrimp could be grown in the United States?

"That could be worth $3 billion, at least," said John Adams, the CFO of Sygen.

And because that prospect could benefit the country's trade balance, the U.S. government gave Sygen, in conjunction with the Oceanic Institute, $8.2 million to identify the gene that allows shrimp to grow in cold water.

Considering that the consumption of pork, chicken and beef dwarf that of shrimp, many genetic research companies are looking even harder into possible applications in those markets. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the beef, pork and poultry industry is roughly a $100 billion market.

Until the human genome was mapped, and with it the genomes of many animals, meat producers used complex statistical analyses to identify characteristics for selective breeding. This information was useful for breeding but not as exact as locating specific genes.

Anigenetics, a Chicago-based startup, is combining genetic mapping and statistical research to improve livestock breeding techniques.

Sygen already garners most of its revenues from identifying genes in pigs. Companies like Pyxis Genomics are also using the human genome to identify which genes in these animals produce, for example, more muscle (or meat) and which genes allow them to create more offspring.

Larry Schook, the CEO of Pyxis Genomics, says that information could increase the efficiency of raising these animals by 10 percent for producers such as Cargill, ConAgro and Purdue.

Then there's the upside in preventing animal sickness, a huge cost for meat producers. Pyxis Genomics, along with the Canadian life sciences company Inimex Pharmaceuticals, is also receiving government money – $27 million from Canada – to identify genes that fight diseases like E. coli, or ones that prevent infection.

"With around $5 billion sold in animal antibiotics a year, just eliminating the need for these offers enormous value," Schook said.

That doesn't include the potential value of some research on animals to humans, developments that usually come later because of the far more stringent regulatory approvals for human treatments.

"That, of course, is a much larger opportunity," Schook said.

But some surely ask: With all this genetic breeding, what will we eventually be eating?

Many contend that this type of genetic identification and cross breeding is very different from genetic modification, which is what many companies are hoping to do by developing so-called "transgenic animals" through cloning. That's when a gene from a different species is inserted into an animal, rather than just marking an already existing gene and trying to bring it out during the breeding process.

"Producers have been trying to identify what cow produces the most milk, for example, or which one has the best meat, and breed it – for thousands of years," said Mike Fernandez, director of science at the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. "This is only a more precise way of getting that information."

Even so, some market observers say that consumers might find it unsettling. Regardless, genetic mapping and marking is certainly settling in well with the companies themselves.

"The potential profits certainly make it very exciting," Adams said.