In these modern days, technology not only used for the good of people, but also for the welfare of animals. If you notice, modern technology have been used for years to increase cattle’s production such milk on cows. However, a research have been made and reviled – it’s a very shocking – but not shocking at the same time – I don’t know, I let you be the judge – animal cloning have been introduced to animal.
For now, we would prioritize our topic to specific pet animal which we all already familiar with it, the cats. Furthermore, everything that you need to know about cat cloning in these days, and how far technology have been made to support the welfare of animals.
Cloning the Cats
Cloning have been reviled as one of human technology to solve many problems of living creatures. Do you ever watch movie called The Island? In short, the movie was described about the future of humanity with their clone who was created to solve variety disease of the original person. Cloning is still become one of the hot topic to debate among commoners – even more, among scientists. The main debate is – of course the ethical moral of cloning.
But, however, if one day several people start to clone human being, I’m not surprise that one day, they would also clone animals. I’m not surprise either if they choose cat to be one of the cloning project. As one of the most popular pet animal, cats are the perfect examples for cloning mission. Can you imagine your cat would be cure from dangerous diseases such as (these are only examples) heart disease, cancer, and others? It was the future everyone hope for.
As you know, cats are existed in many breeds and species, from the exotic cats such as Abysinian cat and Bengal cat, Sphynx cat, and other domesticated cats such as Siamese cat, Siberian and Tabby cat, Angora cat, and etc. Some of them are minority than others, which is why, it would be a perfect idea to safe some species which is threatened to disappear from the existence or simply they were being extinct. In this article today: everything that you need to know about cat cloning would share about the successful first experiment of cat cloning that happened in China.
The Dead has been Arisen
The death of his precious cat of a successful businessman name Huang Yu, made him decided to bring his dead cat to biotechnology company Sinogene. On July 21 a kitten named Garlic have been born in Sinogene lab, and now Huang Yu have become a proud father of Garlic. The company charged Huan Yu about ¥250,000 or about $35,000 US to clone his wonderful cat.
During the interview with The New York Times, Huang Yu said that Garlic (the previous dead cat – yes, the two cats have the same name) is irreplaceable precious cat, unfortunately he left without any progeny, so he thought there’s no other option but clone Garlic. Actually, this is not the first time Sinogene has cloned animals, since 2015 the company has offered opportunity to cloned animal for people, and about 40 dogs have been successfully cloned. On each individual (dog) Sinogene charged owner with $53,000 US.
After the company seeing the arisen of cat’s popularity across China, they attempted to clone Huan Yu’s cat Garlic, explained Mi Jidong, Executive Chief of Sinogene to NYT (The New York Times). So, let’s see how Sinogene’s scientists done this spectacular successful clone. These scientists took Garlic British Shorthair skin cells – and for you information, Garlic died because of urinary tract disease – then, along with other cat harvested eggs generate about 40 cloned embryos.
The last step, the embryos was inserted into 4 surrogate cats by Sinogene’s scientists. Head of Sinogene medical experiments team name Chen Benchi explained the process took 3 pregnancies and seven months course, unfortunately two of them end up in miscarriage. After 66 days, the new Garlic was born from surrogate mother. But, there are certain differences between the old Garlic and new Garlic: although they shared the same DNA (which is the most important part), apparently the new Garlic has no similar appearances with his predecessor.
The new Garlic exhibited different eyes and fur color: if the old one owned black and yellow eyes, apparently, the new British Shorthair was born with grayish coat and blue eyes. Then, Huan Yu reviled what he has felt about the differences between the first and second Garlic. He said that it was a lie if he didn’t felt any disappointment to Sinogene party, but he also added that he accept it for what it is and understand about certain limitation of what technology can do.
This event eventually reap criticism from many parties that claimed animal cloning is inhuman and inefficient. Cloning animal also raise consequences of gene pool to the animal, not to mention the questionable choices of surrogate mother which is violated ethical lines of the animal itself. From the interview of NYT bioethicist name Jessica Pierce from University of Colorado Denver made her opinion that the surrogate mother at this experiment has no intrinsic values and nothing more than an object.
The Cloned Cat
So, what is the true meaning of cloned cat? The cloned cat is the experiment to twin the original genetic of the current cat. Cloning should not change the genetic make-up and should not involve any genetic modification. The cloned cat would develop the same attributes with the previous cat from temperament, intelligence, and appearances. The cloned cat should be completely healthy as your previous cat; if you interest to clone your cat, all you need to do is preserve your cat genes through GP (Genetic preservation).
Although cloning could fulfill you desire for getting back your beloved cat like Huan Yu case – still, there’s questionable subject about cloning you should considered, especially the ethical code it this experiment. As you see in Huan Yu, the cloning experiment is not guarantee the cloned cat would be precisely the same as the current cat; there could be an error happened during the process. Once more again, in this case I would let you be the judge of cloning experiment; is it truly necessary?