{"id":17228,"date":"2025-02-06T17:19:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T11:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=17228"},"modified":"2025-02-06T17:19:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T11:34:38","slug":"australian-team-claims-first-ivf-kangaroo-embryo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/australian-team-claims-first-ivf-kangaroo-embryo\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian team claims first IVF kangaroo embryo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australian-based scientists said Thursday they had produced the world’s first kangaroo embryo through in vitro fertilisation, hailing it as a key step towards saving marsupials that are endangered.<\/p>\n

The University of Queensland-led team said it employed the technique on eastern grey kangaroos — which number in the millions — with the aim of eventually using IVF for scarcer marsupials.<\/p>\n

“Australia is home to the greatest diversity of marsupial fauna on the planet but it also has the highest mammal extinction rate,” lead researcher Andres Gambini said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Our ultimate goal is to support the preservation of endangered marsupial species like koalas, Tasmanian devils, northern hairy-nosed wombats and Leadbeater’s possums.”<\/p>\n

Scientists produced the embryos by a technique that involves injecting a single sperm directly into a mature egg.<\/p>\n

“Because eastern grey kangaroos are overabundant, we collected their eggs and sperm for use as a model to adapt the embryo technologies already applied to domestic animals and humans,” Gambini said.<\/p>\n

“We are now refining techniques to collect, culture and preserve marsupial eggs and sperm.”<\/p>\n

With the right collaboration, funding and technical advancements, an IVF-assisted marsupial birth might be possible within a decade, the researcher said.<\/p>\n

Overall kangaroo numbers fluctuate between 30 million and 60 million in Australia, and they are frequently culled to keep populations in check.<\/p>\n

The animals have a “boom and bust” population cycle — when fodder is plentiful on the back of a good wet season, their numbers can balloon by tens of millions.<\/p>\n

But some other marsupial populations are far more precarious.<\/p>\n

It is estimated that only 20,000 to 50,000 Tasmanian devils still live in the wild, for example, down from as many as 150,000 before a mysterious, facial tumour disease first struck in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n

The kangaroo IVF research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive, Fertility and Development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian-based scientists said Thursday they had produced the world’s first kangaroo embryo through in vitro fertilisation, hailing it as a key step towards saving marsupials that are endangered. The University of Queensland-led team said it employed the technique on eastern grey kangaroos — which number in the millions — with the aim of eventually using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17230,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228\/revisions\/17230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}