Researcher Information

Gordon Woods | Dirk Vanderwall | Ken White

Dr. Kenneth White was in the final weeks of completing his bachelor’s degree in the late 1970s when he learned about embryo transfer techniques that were then the newest, cutting-edge of animal reproductive science.

He was hooked.

Now, some 24 years later, White is among those helping advance the current cutting-edge of animal reproduction — somatic-cell nuclear transfer, or cloning.

White, a professor in Utah State University’s Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences Department, hopes his involvement in producing the first cloned member of the horse family, a mule, will inspire his students the way those lectures about embryo transfer inspired him.

“ The idea of harvesting and fertilizing multiple eggs and transferring them to recipient animals was amazing to me and I just had to get involved,” White says. “I got a list of who was doing embryo transfer research and based on that list I applied for graduate school at (University of California) Davis.”

White completed a master’s degree in animal science and a doctoral degree in physiology at UC-Davis. He was assistant and then associate professor at Louisiana State University from 1986 to 1991.

He joined Utah State University’s College of Agriculture in 1991 and was named a full professor and director of the Center for Development and Molecular Biology in 1995.

White is a member of the International Embryo Transfer Society and chaired the organization’s education and foundation committees from 1994-1999. He is a member of the American Society for Cell Biology, Society for the Study of Reproduction, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

White’s current research interests, which he shares with graduate and undergraduate students in the courses he teaches, include identifying factors associated with oocyte activation in domestic animals, understanding early embryonic development, evaluating early gene expression in mammalian embryos, enhancing disease resistance in animals, and computer enhancement and analysis of preimplantation embryos.