After several advances in livestock biotechnology undertakings, the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) strides to yet another research endeavor—the use of sexed semen or sperm-sexing technique in buffalo.
Sperm-sexing makes gender selection possible, that is, produce an offspring of the desired sex following artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization.
The research will be carried out by a team composed of Dr. Libertado C. Cruz, executive director; Dr. Danilda H. Duran, senior agriculturist; and Peregrino G. Duran, supervising science research specialist and coordinator of the reproductive biotechnology unit.
They attended the 8th annual conference of the Asian Reproductive Biotechnology Society (ABRS) in Guilin City, China from October 25-30, where they consequently established collaboration and research linkage with Guangxi University in Nanning, China on sperm sexing project in buffalo.
At present, Dr. Kehuan Lu of Guangxi University has about 30,000 doses of sexed buffalo semen whose sperms were sorted using a flow cytometer.
Dr. Lu and Dr. Cruz agreed that both parties will be jointly working on this project. Both parties also look forward in the possible supply of available sexed buffalo sperm samples that will be brought to the Philippines through PCC for intensified R&D purposes.
Further, the team also had dialogues with the representatives from Guangxi Water Buffalo Research Institute on developments and trends of water buffalo research in China. Currently, the research institute focuses its R&D efforts on ovum pick-up (OPU) and on the use of sexed-sperm for the production of sex-predetermined calves that will also help magnify China’s dairy buffalo industry.
Aside from establishing research collaborations on the sperm-sexing project, the team also discussed possible research linkage in the field of oocytes vitrification with Prof. Junya Ito of Azabu University, Kanagawa, Japan.
Meanwhile, the team also presented a paper titled, “Effect of pyruvate and lactate with increasing concentration of serum and addition of glucose to basic medium, TCM 199, on the production of water buffalo embryo in vitro”.
With deliberate efforts and reproductive biotechnology advancements continuously being done in the Philippines, the Executive Committee of ARBS identified the Philippines, through PCC, as the venue for the 9th Annual conference of ARBS.
