Cat+Cloning

National Geographic March 25, 2004  The company that has successfully cloned cats is now offering to clone the pets of their donors. An email was sent in February offering cat-cloning to the company’s “gene-banking clients.” The cost is $50,000 for each cat cloned. Ben Carson, vice president of communications for Genetics Savings and Clone reported that four clients have already signed up to take advantage of pet-cloning, and work to clone said pets will commence immediately. The California-based company hopes to present the newly cloned cats to their owners as soon as November. Three company-owned cats will also be cloned and presented to the American Veterinary Medical Association at its yearly conference.  The company also looks to clone dogs, although experts have admitted that cloning dogs appears to be more of a challenge. John Sperling, a noted donor to the company’s cloning projects has offered his own dog for the process. Although Missy died in 1997, tissue samples were saved in hopes of aiding the cloning project. Carlson feels confident that his company will successfully clone a dog by the end of the year.  A 2002 survey published by //Nature Biotechnology// reports that 23 percent of cloned mammals fail to reach healthy adulthood. Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was euthanized due to her virus-induced lung tumor. However, the institute that cloned the sheep claims that Dolly’s contraction of the virus was not connected to the fact that she was cloned. Several animals have been cloned since Dolly, including two wildcats that are on display at the Audubon zoo in Louisiana. A spokeswoman for the Audubon Center for Research and Endangered Species says that both cats are doing well.

March 10, 2010