Word: identigene
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That's where Dr. Patrick Cunningham, the former director of the Animal Production and Health Division of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, and Ireland's current chief scientific advisor, comes in. Cunningham's 12-year-old company, IdentiGEN, specializes in DNA tracing of meat products - a process that can save valuable time during industry recalls, like the massive one on Sunday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) involving 143 million lbs. of raw and frozen beef. Currently, IdentiGEN is operating in Europe, where the mad cow crisis in the mid-'90s led to the establishment...
...IdentiGEN's traceback system starts with a small DNA sample taken from an animal carcass while it is still intact. The sample is stored in a computer database, and from that point on, at any step in the distribution process, another sample can be taken from any product to confirm its origins. The entire process costs one half of 1% of the value of the animal, according to Cunningham. If cloned-animal DNA were made publicly available (cloners now keep DNA information proprietary), Cunningham says he could trace a single steak back to an individual cloned steer in less than...
...IdentiGEN opened its U.S. headquarters and a DNA lab in May 2007 in Lawrence, Kansas. Last October, the company received the official go-ahead from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to launch its DNA TraceBack system and is currently offering it up to American meat producers and retailers. For the record, Cunningham says he would happily enjoy a steak from a cloned steer, but recognizes there's a "general, unscientific feeling that something that's cloned is getting too close to Frankenstein...
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