These are exciting times we live in. Almost daily we are besieged by announcements of new technological advancements in the fields of science and medicine. As recently as 1982, however, there was a technology that scientists said we would never achieve. That year at the Denver Conference for the Prospects for Sexing Mammalian Sperm, scientists concluded that sex selection could never be done reliably. They were wrong. There are foals, cattle, even humans living now whose gender was decided then preselected before conception.

We rarely get to see what goes on behind the scenes and how individual people influence the course of technological advancements. Dr. Mervyn Jacobson provides a fascinating glimpse behind those walls and allows people to see the impact that sex selection technology is having on the world. Dr. Jacobson is Chief Executive Officer of XY Inc., and owner of Stove Prairie Ranch in Bellvue, Colo., XY is one of the leading research firms involved in unraveling the secrets of how gender is determined, then using the technology to select the gender of mammals at conception. Dr. Jacobson spoke to American Morgan Horse Association members attending his forum at the 2001 AMHA Convention in San Diego, Calif. During his forum it also became obvious that the role horses have played in the development of the technology stems much from Dr. Jacobson’s own involvement with horses.

Every sex selected foal delivered by XY Inc., to date has been born at Stove Prairie Ranch, the farm that Jacobson and Gail Bratz own and operate. Gail herself is very involved with each of the horses and has been there personally to care for and deliver the eagerly anticipated foals. In 2000 Jacobson purchased additional property, the former Moondrift Morgan Farm, to be the home to XY’s scientific research breeding farm. Future sex selected foals will be born there. While sex selection technology began in cattle, it is clear that Jacobson has influenced the use of that technology to include horses in a prominent way as well.

The sorted sperm is then used for artificial insemination.

The first purebred sex selected foal was an Arabian. Jacobson explained that there are few Morgans available for research because with their versatility Morgans are rarely donated for research. However, XY recently donated a sex selection process at the AMHI (American Morgan Horse Institute) auction and the Circle J auction. A Morgan mare was also recently donated to XY. With these possibilities on the horizon, it is assured that a purebred sex selected Morgan will soon be achieved. The race is now on to see which foal becomes the first such Morgan ever produced.

Sex selection is widely accepted as one of the most sought after technologies of all time. The technology is important for a variety of reasons including improving breeding efficiencies, increasing the worldwide food source, saving endangered species, saving animals killed on a mass basis across the world, medical research and many other humane and medically desirable needs. For example, AIDS research has been developing so rapidly that more monkeys are needed in the race for a cure for the disease. By producing more females to become mothers, more monkeys can be made available to potentially end this epidemic. Similarly, by producing more females to become mothers, recovering populations of endangered species can much more rapidly and efficiently be achieved.

That's because British dairy farmers can ensure that their cows produce virtually nothing but female offspring.

Other medical research calls for animals that have medicinal value in their milk to be mass produced as females to make more milk available. Currently in many countries, male offspring of dairy cattle are exterminated at birth on a mass basis. By making the selection of female offspring an option, such mass killings can be eliminated. Even on a more general level, female livestock giving birth for the first time can be selected to have female offspring, who are generally smaller and thus easier to birth, thus saving many mother’s lives.

Dr. Jacobson and XY Inc., were recently honored in a special ceremony at Great Britain’s House of Lords. They were given the United Kingdom’s highest award in science for their role in introducing sex selection to the U.K., which has helped replace the herds of cattle eliminated through the mad cow disease epidemic.

This technology is sex selection, not sex identification - identification of the sex of an offspring before conception so unwanted offspring can be prevented. XY is the leader in sex selection technology in livestock, the only technology which allows the sex to be determined prior to conception, a humane approach to family planning.

XY has worked with many different species of mammals. Everything from cattle and horses to current projects with elk, bison, gorillas, elephants, gazelles and the nearly extinct Cleveland Bay horses. However, XY does not work with human sperm because of the ethical implications. This technology was so needed that the governments of the world urged XY to “get on with the job” in livestock while other companies pursue the more slowly advancing and ethically unclear human technology.

Since that Denver Conference in 1982 when sex selection was considered never a viable process,” the challengers of that theory have been hard at work. Cytomation, a company in which Dr. Jacobson is a principle, developed the flow cytometer. This device allows sperm to be collected and stained with a low level of dye. While there are equal numbers of x and y sperm and they are identical in every way including size, weight, charge, speed, etc., it was found that x and y sperm retained different amounts of the dye. By then processing the sperm individually and hitting each with a beam of light to detect the level of dye, it became possible to sort x and y sperm into different containers. This was the breakthrough that scientists were waiting for.

XY came on the scene in 1996. Founded by Colorado State University and Cytomation, XY acquired Mastercalf (a British company specializing in sex selection research) and secured an exclusive license to a key USDA patent. By 1997 XY had produced its first sexed calf using nonsurgical artificial insemination. Similarly only one year after the formation of the company, Call Me Madam, the first sexed foal ever born was conceived and then delivered at the Stove Prairie Ranch in 1998. Impressive results for XY when the gestational period of the horse is eleven months.

Advances have continued at a rapid clip. In 1999, XY produced the first sexed calves outside the United States (in the U.K.), as well as the first sexed calf with frozen semen and artificial insemination (both processes of freezing and sorting the semen are potentially damaging to the semen). Of the nine foals XY produced in 2000, LaLuna who was born in May 2000, was the first sexed foal born by artificial insemination with only 1% of the semen required by the general rule (Pickett’s rule) for impregnating horses (500,000,000).

Nadine, born in August of 2000, was the first sexed foal produced by artificial insemination of frozen and thawed sperm at a 1% of Pickett’s rule count.

Don’t look for advances by XY to slow down any time soon. In addition to studies in many other species (including many endangered species), look for advances in extenders and buffers making shipping of semen more practical. Flow cytometry will eventually allow the sorting of cells for other characteristics, i.e., speed or eye color. And while flow cytometers can sort any type of cell (cancer, blood, etc.), portable machines for sex selection only are on the horizon for breeding operations.

The year 2001 will be the first year that, on a limited basis, sex selection will become available commercially for horses. Dr. Jacobson estimates that the cost of sex selecting a foal will approximate $5,000 including mare care, breeding and determining pregnancy, but he stresses that this cost will continue to decrease as it becomes more widely available. Already hundreds of normal healthy offspring have been produced through sex selected technology. With rapidly expanding technology and a 90-95% success rate, expect that number to climb exponentially.

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