Helping hand for panda cubs
23 Sep 2013 by Evoluted New Media
As Edinburgh Zoo eagerly anticipates the birth of a panda cub, scientists in Glasgow – together with a team from the Chengdu Research Base in China – are working on a panda milk formula, just in case more than one arrives.
Panda cubs are heavily dependent on their mother’s first milk – or colostrum – as it contains large amounts of antibodies to protect the new-born from disease. Without a full quota the cub will die which presents a problem in multiple births
Ordinarily a mother will concentrate her attention on one cub, rejecting the other – meaning humans step in to lend a helping hand. Abandoned cubs are fed cows’ milk adapted for puppies, or switched with the favoured cub when mum isn’t looking to ensure they both get sufficient milk.
The current project will see scientists use state-of-the-art instruments to identify and characterise the proteins and other molecules that constitute panda colostrum and the later mature milk.
“My interest here is in the biology of lactation in bears,” said Professor Malcolm Kennedy from the School of Life Sciences. “Bears give birth to tiny, helpless cubs that are unusually small relative to their mothers, in the case of pandas the weight ratio can be as low as 1:1000 or less.”
“It could be that panda milk is specially adapted to rear such under-developed young. Indeed we have found that panda milk takes much longer to convert colostrum to regular milk in cows, for example.”
The team will look at the lactation period from birth to 150 days, recording how levels of different proteins change during panda lactation. Kennedy hopes the research will improve understanding of lactation biology in different types of mammals, particularly bears.
“We are a long way from designing a milk substitute for panda cubs, but the kind of data we are generating will set us in the right direction,” he said.
