Recently, Professor Xiangyang Miaohas been awarded a US patent from the the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) regarding a novel miRNA for increasing animal reproduction. The invention provides a novel and attractive method for producing animals with high fecundity, which lays the foundation for developing new animal varieties.

Reproduction trait is an important factorsuch as a number of litters per birthfor livestock industry. It is reported that genetic selection contributes 30-60% of income to the animal industry,where there is 25% of such income supra related to the producing multiple births and15% of such income suprarelated to individual breeding.

Therefore, animals with multiple births have been an important goal of common pursuit of world animal production. However, this trait is controlled by multiple genesand thus makes it hard for the animal industry to select such trait using traditional selection method.This invention provides a novel and creative pathway to improve the fertility of animals using a new miRNA or shRNAto inhibit the expression of inhibinin animals.

Since 2013, the research group has obtained 2national invention patents and 1US invention patent regarding increasing animal reproduction.
 

By Miao Xiangyang
mxy32@sohu.com