Scientists at FAU's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute are theFirst to 'Unlock' the Mystery of Creating High-quality Cultured Pearls From the Queen Conch

摘要

BOCA RATON, FL (November 4, 2009) – For more than25 years, all attempts at culturing pearls from the queen conch(Strombus gigas Linnaeus, 1758) have been unsuccessful; until now.For the first time, scientists from Florida Atlantic University'sHarbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) have developednovel and proprietary seeding techniques to produce beaded(nucleated) and non-beaded cultured pearls from the queen conch.With less than two years of research and experimentation, Drs.Hector Acosta-Salmon and Megan Davis, co-inventors, haveproduced more than 200 cultured pearls using techniques theydeveloped. Prior to this breakthrough, no high-quality queen conchpearl had been cultured. This discovery opens up a uniqueopportunity to introduce a new gem to the industry. This significantaccomplishment is comparable to that of the Japanese in the 1920swhen they commercially applied the original pearl culturetechniques developed for pearl oysters.