By Kimberly Durnan
Associated Press Writer
Friday, Jan. 12, 2001; 12:15 p.m. EST

DES MOINES, Iowa –– A rare ox called an Asian gaur, cloned and gestated in the womb of a cow in a scientific first, was born this week but died two days later of an ordinary disease, scientists announced Friday.

Scientists claimed bittersweet victory in the experiment, which used technology they hope can help shore up the numbers of endangered animals. The Asian gaur (pronounced "gour") is endangered.

The baby gaur, a bull named Noah, was born Monday at TransOva Genetics in Sioux Center, Iowa, and died from common dysentery Wednesday. The project united the technology of cloning with that of an interspecies birth.

Noah was the first animal to gestate in the womb of another species and survive through the late stages of fetal development. Five other cows that became pregnant with cloned gaur fetuses spontaneously aborted them.

"The data collected clearly indicates that cross-species cloning worked, and as a scientist, I'm pleased," said Philip Damiani, a researcher with Advanced Cell Technology, a Boston-based company that sponsored the research.

A necropsy of the gaur concluded that its death was not a result of cloning or gestation in another species, said company vice president Robert Lanza, vice president of medical and scientific development at ACT. However, scientists plan to study the gaur's death further.

"We don't think it had to do with the cloning," he said. "Dysentery affects farm animals, and the mortality rate can approach 100 percent."

To create Noah, scientists used the single cell of a dead gaur implanted into a cow's egg. They first removed the DNA from the cow's egg, ensuring that the interspecies pregnancy produced a gaur, not a gaur-cow mix, Damiani said.

Gaur, native to India and Burma, are brownish-black animals with white legs, a pronounced shoulder hump and horns that curve inward. The largest of wild cattle, an adult male gaur can reach a shoulder height of 6 feet and weigh up to a ton, with horns 2 feet long.

"Despite this setback, the birth of Noah is grounds for hope," Lanza said. "We still have a long way to go, but as this new technology evolves, it has the potential to save dozens of endangered species."

Bessie, an ordinary black and white Angus cow, gave birth under the watchful gaze of geneticists. The experiment cost Advanced Cell Technology around $200,000, Damiani said.

Some scientists warn that biotechnology is advancing at a pace so fast that society does not have time to ponder its meaning.

Just Thursday, scientists in Oregon announced they had created the world's first genetically modified primate – a baby rhesus monkey born last fall with some jellyfish DNA in its genetic makeup.

Commenting on the Iowa research, Gary Comstock, director of Iowa State University's Bioethics Program, said scientists must answer to whether the bioengineered animals will be healthy and whether they will have a place to live.

"If the environment changes, the newly cloned animals may lead miserable lives if they are unable to pursue their instincts and desires," Comstock said. "They can't live here any more – that's why they are extinct.

"We need broader types of habitat the animals can live in. Just preserving the species is too narrow a vision."

Advanced Cell Technology already has plans to clone an extinct Spanish mountain goat called the bucardo, which is native to the Pyrenees. The cells will be taken from the last bucardo, which died and was frozen last year.

But the gaur birth won't bring a rush of scientists producing extinct and endangered species, said George Amato, director of Science Resource Center at The Bronx Zoo in New York.

"It's complicated, expensive and it doesn't work all the time," he said. "It's not an answer to the extinction crisis."

For instance, the procedure won't resurrect the extinct Dodo bird because scientists don't have its genetic makeup.

Also, some endangered animals don't have any living surrogates that are suitable matches. While the gaur and cow are close in the animal kingdom, Amato said, there aren't any strong surrogate candidates to produce the rare Tibetan antelope, for example.

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On the Net:

Advanced Cell Technology: http://www.advancedcell.com/

TransOva Genetics: http://www.transova.com/home.html