With the death of the oak tree by Old Main appearing imminent, one Eastern professor is looking to clone the tree and create a genetic copy.

Biology professor Henry Owen said he hopes to recruit students in the fall to help him research the best method of cloning the over 300-year-old bur oak.

He said he brought up the idea to the president’s council in June when they met to discuss future plans for the dying tree.

While facilities planning and management intends to grow new trees from the oak’s acorns, Owen said these new trees would not be genetically identical.

The current tree will likely eventually need to be removed.

When this happens, Owen said they could possibly plant one of its clones in the same spot.

“If we can do it I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” he said. “It would be as if the tree never died.”

Owen said he has not seen evidence of anyone having tried to clone this particular species of tree before, but he said he is encouraged because other types of oaks have been successfully cloned.

“I’m hopeful that we can regenerate it based on what I’ve seen in the literature,” Owen said.

He said there are multiple methods that can be used to clone the oak.

These include a more traditional method of planting cuttings from the tree as well as growing a clone in vitro using tissue culture.

Owen said both methods of cloning could have issues, especially since this particular oak is not an ideal subject.

He said the fact that the tree is stressed, very old and made of wood all add to the difficulty of cloning it.

“It’s a challenge,” Owen said. “What we do may not work. If I could guarantee it I wouldn’t call it research.”

He said planting cuttings of the oak would involve applying rooting powder to the cut in order to encourage root growth.

Working with tissue culture, however, could have several advantages over working with cuttings, he said.

These include using less plant material, storing more specimens in a smaller space and lack of pests.

Owen said tissue culture is one of his areas of expertise and the first step is to find the best way of disinfecting the specimens used.

Because this method of cloning is a form of micropropagation, Owen only needs to use small samples of the tree such as buds or leaves. He said these usually only need to be disinfected on the surface, but the challenge comes from killing the contaminants without killing the sample.

Owen said it is very important for samples to be disinfected because the tissue culture process also encourages the growth of bacteria and fungal contaminants. When these grow rapidly, they can easily overwhelm and kill the plant sample.

He said because the oak is a woody plant, it is much more likely to have numerous contaminants.

The age of the tree will also make other parts of the cloning process more difficult as well, Owen said.

After finding the right method of disinfecting the samples, Owen said he will then need to find the best way to rejuvenate the sample’s cells.

While each cell of the tree has all the information needed to make a new oak, he said they are too specialized and they need to be more general, such as juvenile plant cells.

Owen said this is often achieved by adding in different plant hormones to the tissue culture, but it becomes more difficult with older cells.

“They’re set in their ways, so to speak,” he said.

Owen said some of the synthetic hormones needed for this process can be expensive. To help pay for materials, he said he is applying for funds from the Council on Faculty Research.

While the deadline for the application is Sept. 5, Owen said he is not sure how long it takes the council to determine who is a recipient.

He said he hopes to find out as early as possible because the research must be done around the timetable of the tree. It would not be possible to start in winter because of the lack of samples, he said.

“The best time to work on this would be March or April,” Owen said. “Academically speaking, that’s probably the worst time.”

He said if he and the students potentially involved are capable of creating an identical copy, their ultimate goal would be publishing their results.

“I’m probably jumping the gun here, but if we create multiple clones, maybe we could sell them,” Owen said. “Hey, would you like your own version of the tree by Old Main?”

Seth Schroeder can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].