Scientists in Queensland have successfully produced the first kangaroo embryo through IVF using a technique developed in the early 1990s. Lead researcher Dr Andres Gambini says the development is a big step towards saving marsupial species from extinction.
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00:00The very first attempt of producing a marsupial embryo was 20 years ago, and in these last
00:0820 years, we have learned a lot on how to grow embryos in the lab.
00:14And we are growing embryos in bovine and in forces.
00:19And now that we can have marsupial embryos in the dish, this has a huge impact for conservation
00:26because we can understand a lot of the reproductive biology, and this can help us to design new
00:35conservation tools.
00:36But at the same time, what we can do with this technology, combined, of course, with
00:41other conservation strategies, is we can preserve the genetics of animals that they are dying.
00:48So in this endangered species, animals are dying.
00:52And what we can do is we can preserve the sperm, we can preserve the eggs, and then
00:56have embryos that we can, in the future, use and transfer to reintroduce that genetic into
01:02the population and contribute to conserving that species.