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Monday, November 28, 2005
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Frozen pig semen used for breeding

THAILAND - Pigs with good genetic make-up could be genetically reproduced an unlimited number of times as a result of Thai veterinarians' success in developing a new method of artificial insemination – that involves freezing pig semen.

Padej Thammarak, of Chula-longkorn University’s Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, who heads the project, said Thailand was the first country in Southeast Asia to successfully breed pigs using previously frozen semen.

The project was a collaboration between Chulalongkorn and Mahidol universities. Padej said the technique was introduced to the world by developed countries such as the United States, Sweden and Australia just a few years ago.

“This confirms that Thai scientists are not far behind world-class scientists,” he said.

Padej said the freezing process presented a challenge as the sperm cells were initially weakened by being frozen, and died.

He and his team had made the cells more resilient by adding chemicals during the freezing process.

But Padej did not elaborate on the specific chemical formula used.

He said the technique actually improved the performance of the previously frozen sperm cells – so much so that “only” 500 million sperm cells are needed for a single artificial insemination, compared to an insemination using fresh pig semen, which requires about 2-3 billion sperm cells.

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