Coming soon: Cat clones

Chinese company launches cat cloning service

Maria Azarova, Naked Science

On the twenty-first of July, a kitten named Garlic was born, cloned by the Beijing company Sinogene Biotechnology Company, writes the publication ZOL. According to local media, Garlic became the first successfully cloned cat in China (the first cloned cat in the world was born at the end of 2001).

A cloned kitten and its deceased prototype – VM.

"After its successful creation, we will begin to provide official cloning services," Zhao Jianping, the company's deputy director, told reporters.

Cloning a cat or dog requires culturing an embryo from an animal cell before implantation into the uterus of a surrogate mother. The whole process – from cell extraction to birth – takes at least two months, said Lai Liangxue, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. At the same time, you will have to spend about 35 thousand dollars to create a copy of your pet.

Garlic and the cat from which the cells were taken for cloning look absolutely identical, but they have a different character. According to experts, the lifespan of the "copy" will be the same as that of an ordinary animal. The company also plans to use artificial intelligence or human–machine interface technology: this will allow you to transfer the memories and characteristic features of the "original" animal to its clone. (Well, what an unbridled fantasy they have – VM.)

According to Zhao Jianpin, several cat owners have already booked a service in case of the death of their pets. And since two years ago Sinogene successfully cloned a dog named Lun Lun, now the company offers services for creating copies of dogs, the cost of the procedure is 54 thousand dollars. 

Despite the fact that many representatives of the scientific world are skeptical about the widespread introduction of cloning and gene editing, the technology for obtaining several genetically identical organisms does not stand still: at the beginning of the year, five macaque clones with altered genes were born in China.

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