SBIR-STTR Award

Instructions: The summary is limited to 250 words. The names and affiliated organizations of all Project Directors/Principal Investigators (PD/PI) should be listed in addition to the title of the project. The summary should be a self-contained specific description of the activity to be undertaken and should focus on: overall project goal(s) and supporting objectives; plans to accomplish project goal(s); and relevance of the project to the goals of the program. The importance of a concise informative Project Summary cannot be overemphasized. Title: Single injection alternative to surgical castration in pigs PD: Hess Rex A; Park Chan Jin Institution: Insigna Inc. Surgical castration of newborn pigs is used to prevent aggression and boar taint the pungent odor caused by and rostenone and skatole accumulation in fat tissues. However the process of cutting the scrotum and pulling out the testes without anesthesia causes pain and stress in pigs and has a negative impact on employee morale contributing to already high personnel turnover on US farms. Replacing surgical castration in pigs has been a difficult problem for decades because the technical goals are to eliminate the production of androgens and to control for unwanted behaviors without eliminating the testis. Furthermore the replacement must be cost- effective and easy to implement or it will not be adopted on the farms. iNeuter is our solution for these difficult problems. iNeuter has been successfully tested in male rats where a single neonatal injection inhibited Leydig cell maturation spermatogenesis and androgen production. The iNeutered adult males were infertile and exhibited no sexual behavior. The proposed project will test for proof of concept in the male neonatal pig and identify an effective safe dose. iNeuter has the potential to address several important issues facing stakeholders in the industry. First and foremost for the farm owners a cost-effective replacement for surgical castration; removal of an unpleasant procedure from the work-environment and reducing the risk of injury for employees; elimination of boar taint in the meat for consumers; and resolution of welfare concerns for the animals due to the pain and stress currently experienced by the piglets.