Grand Forks Herald
February 27, 2006 Monday
North Dakota: FRM
Safeguarding Iowa State's research chickens
Researchers work to preserve genetic materials
Amy Lorentzen
Associated Press
Iowa State University in Ames is working to safeguard the genetic material of what
scientists there say is an irreplaceable collection of research chickens.
The university's Poultry Research Center houses more than two dozen special chicken
varieties that have been inbred for generations to share genetic material, an important
control factor in research, says Sue Lamont, an animal science professor in charge of
the center's research lines.
"That allows us to understand when we are studying, for example, a disease, what part
... is due to the genetics as compared to the environment," she says.
Because the chickens are isolated from generation to generation, both current scientists
and future ones can work with the birds and they will be consistent, she says
Building defenses
To ensure the research lines are not lost or destroyed, the university has stockpiled 300
sperm samples from its roosters at a U.S. Department of Agriculture research center in
Colorado.
The move came after two tornadoes touched down in Ames last fall. The twisters came
close to the university, but did not heavily damage any campus property.
The previous year, animal rights activists broke into a University of Iowa laboratory,
freeing laboratory mice and rats and destroying data.
"We always need to think about any potential factor or event that might cause a loss of
valuable material," Lamont says. "It might be deliberate - or inadvertent."
The center's research projects include examining chickens' resistance to disease,
response to vaccinations, growth and skeletal strength.
Current technology allows only the male genetic material to be preserved. If Iowa
State's chicken lines were wiped out, the samples would be used to inseminate hens of
other lines. The chickens would continue to be inbred for uniformity, to maintain the
genes scientists find most useful.
"Because this process would preserve those specific genes, that's our major interest,"
Lamont says.
In Colorado, the poultry semen is cryogenically stored at the National Center for Genetic
Resources Preservation in Fort Collins. The center stores genetic material from animals
and crops important to the nation's agriculture and landscape, ensuring that they can be
regenerated.
"From our perspective, this is a valuable contribution to the collection," says Harvey
Blackburn, coordinator of the National Animal Germplasm Program, a NCGRP research
unit. "There are opportunities for people, at some point in the future, to come and utilize
the genetic resources that we have here in the repository."