‘ET’ dairy calves bred Doc Pat-ET.

No, these are no "extra-terrestial" codes.

"Doc Pat" refers to Dr. Patricio S. Faylon, executive director of the Los Baños-based DOST-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD).

"ET" stands for embryo transfer, or the transfer of fertilized ovum or egg from one cow to a recipient (surrogate) cow to complete its gestation.

"Doc Pat-ET" is the name given to the first of 11 half (50 percent) Holstein Friesian (HF) and half Sahiwal (SH) blood calves born in the country through the ET technology process.

Embryo transfer in tandem with super-ovulation (SOET) is a reproductive biotechnique that involves the use of hormone that stimulates follicle (early stage of egg) to induce a cow to produce more than one egg at a time, insemination, collection of fertilized eggs from the donor cow’s reproductive tract through surgical or nonsurgical means and transfer of embryos to surrogate cows.

"SOET has a big potential in increasing the reproductive rate of animals," explained Dr. Elaine F. Lanting, assistant director of PCARRD’s Livestock Research Division.

The first two calves under the PCARRD-funded project "Production of high quality Philippine dairy-type animals through the use of reproductive biotechniques" were born in 2001. The 11 succeeding ones were born in the last quarter of 2002, with the first among them named "Doc Pat-ET" after Dr. Faylon, himself a noted animal scientist and a strong supporter of the use of reproductive biotechniques to fast-track the country’s animal genetic improvement program.

Implementing the project is the UP Los Baños Dairy Training and Research Institute (UPLB-DTRI) headed by Dr. Virginia Barraquio, The project team is composed of Dr. Antonio Rayos (leader); Dr. Jose Bautista, Dr. Demetrio Marcial Jr., Conrado Oreiro, Antonio Oliva and Shinji Kamiyama, members.

"The births of these crosses through SOET using pure HF donor cow and frozen semen from pure SH bull are among the project’s major breakthroughs," Dr. Rayos said. "Moreover, the pregnancy rate of 63 percent attained in this project is the highest ET conducted locally in cattle and may be considered as one of the highest in the world." – Rudy A. Fernandez