Anyone over thirty should be able to recall the days when cloning was considered to be a science-fiction proposition, and words like 'impossible' were freely tossed out by many experts.
As the world proceeded to marvel at just how wrong those predictions would prove to be, as we watched frogs and then sheep emerge, created in a way that no God intended, a single burning question began to arise in the minds of people everywhere....
"When will we be able to clone Muffy?"
All pet lovers have known at least one extra-special animal, one that they would give anything to replace.
That is precisely what Genetic Savings & Clone is proposing to do for their clients in the nearest possible future.
Cute name, serious enterprise. GSC has banked the DNA of hundreds of animals. Costs range from $895 for animals in good health to $1,395 for those who are sick or dead.
While this may at first glance appear to be a large jar of snake oil, GSC is the real thing. In 1997 the world learned of the successful cloning of Dolly the Sheep, and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling was inspired to fund a multi-million dollar research effort to clone his mix breed dog, Missy. Word of this spread, and calls and emails began flooding in from pet owners around the world wanting to bank their own animals. Dr. Sperling and other members of the "Missyplicity Project" founded GSC in 2000 in response to this interest.
Cloning pets certainly has its hurdles to clear. While commercial cloning of some prize livestock animals has become almost routine, with animals being cloned for a mere $15,000 to $25,000 per cow, cloned animals often have health problems or other defects that scientists cannot yet account for. Short life spans, poor immune systems, and problems with obesity are common. Some animal species have proven more difficult to clone successfully than others, and many, like the much-desired dog sought by the Missyplicity Project, have never yet been cloned.
However, thanks to a 3.7 million dollar grant from GSC to Texas A&M University, the first cat clone was introduced to the world on Valentine's day of 2002. |
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High Tech Cuteness
Named Copycat, or CC for short, the adorable kitten was deemed healthy in every way and has remained healthy to date. She is not, however, much of a duplicate of her donor, Rainbow. While Rainbow is aloof, CC is playful. Rainbow is a tan and brown calico on white, CC has a striped grey coat over white. Rainbow is chunky and CC is slim.
The differences in the coat color are due to influences in utero which determine the patterns of certain types of markings, but Rainbow and CC's other differences are presumably due to that greatest obstacle of all where pet cloning is concerned, the problem of nature versus nurture. While CC has been proven to be genetically identical to Rainbow, the factors of her life and upbringing have been unique to her, and the result is an animal with a different personality. Researchers warn that it may be impossible to hope to produce clones that are replacements for their originals, in terms of behavior.
But perhaps the subtle complexities of the cloning process itself is the culprit in these variations as well as the abnormalities associated with some clones. The process by which CC was created, called Nuclear Transfer, involves electrically fusing an intact adult donor cell with an ennucleated egg, and the egg must reprogram the adult, or "fixed" state into an embryonic or "undifferentiated" state. Incomplete reprogramming of donor cells is suspected to be a leading factor in low success rates.
In October of 2003, GSC obtained an exclusive liscence from Aurox, LLC, for a new cloning technique shown in tests to greatly reduce some of these problems. Known as Chromatin Transfer, it involves pre-treating the adult animal cell to remove byproducts of cell differentiation, thus allowing the cell to be reprogrammed into an embryonic state more easily following fusion with the egg. |
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"A commercial pet cloning business can only succeed by producing healthy puppies and kittens," commented GSC CEO Lou Hawthorn. "Chromatin Transfer gives us a tremendous advantage in pursuit of that goal."
Rainbow the Original
Perhaps so tremendous that GSC may offer commercial pet cloning services within the year. However, Ben Carlson, the company's spokesperson, said, "It's really impossible for us to make certain predictions as to how long it's going to take to develop the technology to get successful results."
It is expected that when these cloning services do become available, GSC will initially offer them at a low five figure cost, and hope to drop that to a low four figure cost in future.
If the track record of amazing advances in the field of cloning remains consistent, many of us may be cuddling a Clone To Call Our Own in the very near future.
—Disher X
More:
Genetic Savings & Clone, Inc.
"Gene Banking & Cloning of Exceptional Pets"
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, Department of Biology: "The Cloning of Dolly and other Mammals... or, will there ever be another you?"
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