From the very beginning, the people at Genetic Savings & Clone made no secret that their long-term goal was the commercial production and sales of cloned pets, and the only surprise is that it has taken them only three years to accomplish the first sale.
In June of 2004, two cloned kittens were born to separate surrogate mothers, from genetic material from their biological mother, Tahini, a one-year-old Bengal cat. Tahini's owner, Lou Hawthorne, CEO of Genetics Saving & Clone, used a new cloning method called chromatin transfer, which it believes to be safer and more efficient than traditional methods. While CC was cloned using an entire cell nucleus (called nuclear transfer), chromatin transfer entails condensing and transferring only the donor cat's genetic material to a surrogate's egg. The kittens born (separately and by different surrogate cats) in June, named Tabouli and Baba Ganoush, are definitely Bengals, and very close copies of their biological mother.
"Our first attempts using the new CT cloning technology were very successful," said GSC Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Irina Polejaeva, in a press release. "Which suggests that the new method is everything we hoped it would be." Genetic Savings & Clone holds an exclusive license to use chromatin transfer for pet cloning. For those readers who want to learn more about chromatin transfer, a highly technical PDF file is available.
Their pictures on the GSC web site depict healthy, normal kittens, and their owner appears to be quite proud of them. "It's a very exciting result," said GSC CEO Lou Hawthorne. "These two remarkable kittens should finally put to rest the issue of resemblance between clones and their genetic donors. When performed by a skilled team using sufficiently advanced technology, clones resemble their donors to an uncanny degree — just as we predicted. It's a happy day for our clients."
What About the Ethics of Cloning Pets?
For fairly obvious reasons, the purchaser of the first cloned kitten, Little Nicky, bought at the advertised $50,000 price tag, was reluctant to have personal information disclosed. She did not care to be the target of the kind of criticism she knew would unfold at the announcement of her purchase. We only know that her name is Julie, that she and Little Nicky live somewhere in Texas, and that Little Nicky was created with genetic material from her beloved cat Nicky, whom she lost in 2003. Little Nicky is a gorgeous longhaired tabby kitten who strongly resembles a Maine Coon. Those of us who have lost treasured cats can certainly sympathize with Julie's longing to honor Nicky's memory with a cat of his exact genetic makeup.
On the other hand, those of us who are active animal advocates cannot help but be saddened at the thought of what that $50,000 could represent in terms of homeless cats saved. David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University said aloud what many of us are thinking: "It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," he told Paul Elias for an Associated Press article. "For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays."
We know that while no one can ever replace a lost cat completely, we can honor his memory by rescuing another cat in need of a home. Would Julie not love a shelter calico or tabby every bit as much as she loves Little Nicky? I think not, but it was not my $50,000, nor my decision.
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