MEMBRANE PROTECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase II: 8.3

Description

The ability to freeze boar semen provides several advantages including disease reduction, more rapid genetic transfer, genetic banking, and more precise correlation with optimum female fertility. Although freezing is routine technology in many livestock species, it is not so in teh swine industry. Unfortunately, in boars, sperm quality inconsistencies and poor fertility make this technology commercially uneconomical today because it results in smaller litter sizes and decreased farrowing (birthing) rates.Freezing boar sperm is substantially different than other agricultural species requiring transportation, freezing, thawing an ddilution. Based on MPTI's phase I data, the transportation step has a substantial impact on the finished product. MPTI's product GameteGuard forms the basis for a freezing system that together can be used to optimize post-thaw sperm health. In Phase I the technology resulted in a 25% incrase in sperm health with only a new freezing medium. In phase II, MPTI will execute multiple breeding trials interspaced within development of shipping and thawing medium to complete the creation of a full freezing system for boar sperm.This technology could save pork producers >$6mm annually over the existing frozen technology, and commercial interest is evident in teh collaboration agreement for commercialization that MPTI has formed with a large pork producer. GamteGuard freezing system will impart a competative advantage to the U.S. pork industry. Improving fertility will help enable food production for a burgeoning world population and meets USDA's REE-Action plan objective 1.