Looking into your jewelry box, you might find that some pearl earrings or necklaces are not entirely perfect and shiny. If they do, it might have cost you a fortune to obtain such high quality pearls. But most women know it is worth to have them! Of all the jewels and precious stones that are dug out from the Earth, pearls are an exception. They are formed biologically inside a living organism, amazingly the oyster. If you are a pearl lover, you might find this good news to you!
Recent research at Townsville's James Cook University in north Queensland discovered a list of all the genes in the oyster which are responsible of producing a pearl. Project leader Dr Dean Jerry is taking the next step to identify the five or six fundamental genes out of about one million gene bases found in South Pacific pearl oysters. By working out the perfect gene combination and breed the genetically-modified pearl oysters, he hoped to grow high-quality pearls with the best characteristics like round, shiny and pure gold colour.
Dr Jerry said there was a small yield of high quality natural pearls; only 5 per cent to 10 per cent of oysters create the best products. He emphasized that they could manipulate the oyster’s genes combinations with the aid of the latest genetic engineering techniques and thus boost the production outcome of these perfect round pearls. Consequently, he stated that there would be substantial profits in the pearl industry.
According to Dr Jerry, culturing oysters to get high quality pearls can be very complicated and costly. It is a long process before a pearl farmer can obtain a few cultured pearls of substantially high quality out of many unsuccessful ones. However, by selective breeding, he hoped to yield a higher frequency of gem quality, high value pearls.
Related articles can be found at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/05/2646298.htm
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20090708-19528.html
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