Insemination

• SAN DIEGO, April 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance conservation and care team leaders recently visited China and met Yun Chuan (pronounced yoon chu-an) and Xin Bao (pronounced sing bao) the two giant pandas to be cared for by San Diego Zoo.
• "Yun Chuan's lineage has deep connections to the San Diego Zoo and we're excited by the prospect of caring for them."
• The first character of his name, "Yun," is a nod to his grandmother Bai Yun, who thrived at San Diego Zoo for 23 years.
• San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance leaders were in China meeting with conservation partners from China Wildlife Conservation Association on prospective research programs to protect and conserve giant pandas and their habitat.

• They’ve now decided to freeze sperm from as many genetically diverse male African wild dogs as possible and use this to artificially inseminate female African wild dogs for the first time.
• Reproductive and molecular biologist Damien Paris explains why artificial breeding is the best and most economical way to ensure that genetically diverse wild dogs live on.

Why is the African wild dog in danger?

• They are highly efficient pack hunters but need large home ranges to survive and avoid competitors like lions.
• The problem is that most of the remaining habitats are so small and fragmented that they can’t support large populations anymore.
• Usually, when wild dogs are subadults (around two years old) they move far away and form their own pack.

How can genetic diversity help the African wild dog survive?

• Those diseases can spread rapidly among wild dogs and decimate a pack, which is about five to 20 dogs.
• In 2017, canine distemper virus completely wiped out 21 out of 22 packs of wild dogs in Laikipia County, Kenya in less than four weeks.
• We plan to use sperm freezing and artificial insemination to help distribute genetic diversity between isolated populations.

What conservation methods have been used before?

• To increase genetic diversity, African wild dogs have been translocated (moved) across South Africa since 1998.
• Over several weeks, they form a new genetically mixed pack that is released into the wild.
• A whole population of wild dogs could be lost with the next disease outbreak.

How will sperm freezing and artificial insemination help?

• Our back-up plan against disease outbreaks is to create a bank of African wild dog sperm from multiple males.
• Sperm frozen in liquid nitrogen tanks at very cold temperatures can last 50 or 100 years and still produce offspring.
• We recently improved the freezing technique so African wild dog sperm are now able to swim and survive for eight hours after being thawed.
• We plan to build a consortium so that we can have multiple sperm banks throughout South Africa as back-ups.

Will this be very expensive?

• Some recent modelling in other species found that the hybrid approach was between seven and 84 times cheaper than the natural breeding approach.
• This is because it needed 13-100 times fewer animals to maintain 90% genetic diversity in the population over a 100-year period.

Damien Boyd Bertrand Paul Paris receives funding from Morris Animal Foundation, Roger Willliams Park
Zoo and Fresno Chaffee Zoo. He is affiliated with James Cook University, the Institute for Breeding Rare and Endangered African Mammals, and is a Visiting Fellow of the Mammal Research Institute.

• The trial investigated its FemaSeed product in women with a variety of infertility factors with the primary efficacy analysis focused on the severe male factor infertility.
• “These impressive topline results for our now FDA-cleared FemaSeed, demonstrate significant progress in the treatment of infertility, while confirming its safety profile.
• “The pivotal trial amassed substantial prospective data in support of the safety and efficacy of FemaSeed as a groundbreaking advancement in artificial insemination.
• The pivotal trial was concluded prior to completing full enrollment due to Femasys receiving FDA clearance for FemaSeed under the 510(k) pathway in September 2023.

• Rooted in science, the PherDal Kit is the first and only to combine the sterile environment of the fertility clinic with the at-home capabilities of insemination.
• Rooted in science, the PherDal Kit is the first and only to combine the sterile environment of the fertility clinic with the at-home capabilities of insemination.
• Each PherDal Kit includes three (3) sterile syringes and three (3) sterile collection cups to make at-home insemination as sterile, safe and accessible as possible.
• My husband, a mechanical engineer, and I invented the PherDal Kit, which successfully conceived our daughter with the second use.