Texans’ Creation of Bull Calf Defies Age Limits on Cloning

COLLEGE STATION, Texas —  A floppy-eared calf was shown off Thursday as the laboratory product of the oldest animal ever cloned, a 21-year-old Brahman bull named Chance.

Scientists at Texas A&M; University said the creation of the baby bull, named Second Chance, may indicate that cloning can be done with tissue of any age.

“What is the limit?” asked researcher Mark Westhusin. “Do they [cells] reach a certain age where you can’t clone them anymore or does it ever happen?”

He said more work would be required to answer the question, but the cloning of Chance was a good start--he was chronologically equivalent to an 88-year-old human when he died earlier this year at 21.

“This bull definitely died of old age,” said researcher Jonathan Hill.

The Texas A&M; team will be watching Second Chance closely for signs of premature aging after scientists recently reported that Dolly, the first cloned sheep, had some characteristics of the older cells used to generate her. They said they would not know for a month if the calf had the same problem.

Second Chance, 3 weeks old and weighing 125 pounds, looked robust Thursday as he roamed contentedly around his surrogate mother while proud owners, Ralph and Sandra Fisher of La Grange, Texas, looked on.

“My hair stood up on the back of my neck when I saw him,” Ralph Fisher told reporters. “He has the same markings as Chance.” Second Chance is white, with sagging skin, large ears and a hump in his back characteristic of the Brahman bull.

The Fishers suggested the cloning to Texas A&M; because they loved Chance as if he were a 2,300-pound dog. The last six months of his life, he lived in the frontyard of their home.

“He was just very tame and always calm,” Fisher said.

Chance was also a money-maker for the Fishers. He appeared in “The Locusts,” a 1997 movie starring Kate Capshaw, and on the David Letterman show and was used in their family business--photographing people sitting on the back of Longhorn and Brahman bulls.

Second Chance will stay at Texas A&M; until he is weaned in another six months, then join the Fishers. When asked what he hoped for Second Chance, Fisher said: “Be a good pet, a good business associate and live another 21 years.”