To date, the UT cloning research has been specifically intended as a tool to help understand early embryonic development. The more we know about how embryos grow and develop, the more we can improve fertility. Fertility, or the lack thereof, can seriously impact the profitability of any animal operation, particularly dairies. With a commodity like Jersey cattle, where demand outstrips supply, cloning may even present solutions to population problems. However, at present, cloning technology remains highly inefficient.
Scientists are unsure why success rates in cloning experiments remain extremely low.
The UT Cloning Project achieved Millie from an initial group of 95 embryos, which is a significant improvement over the rate of one in 277 attempts that produced Dolly in 1996. Still, the extremely high rate of fetal loss remains one of the great mysteries of cloning. Fetal loss is also of vital importance to producers using standard breeding programs. The UT Cloning Project used ultrasound technology to monitor the progress of nine cloned embryos and their successful implantations in surrogate heifers, and the results were extremely revealing. The data may help pinpoint exactly when and why the majority of clones are lost during early pregnancy.