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borgslayer
Rear Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2003
Posts: 2646
Location: Las Vegas
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 Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:22 pm First cloned cat sold in the U.S. |
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| Quote: | SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The first cloned-to-order pet sold in the United States is named Little Nicky, a 9-week-old kitten delivered to a Texas woman saddened by the loss of a cat she had owned for 17 years.
The kitten cost its owner $50,000 and was created from DNA from her beloved cat, named Nicky, who died last year.
"He is identical. His personality is the same," the owner, Julie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Although she agreed to be photographed with her cat, she asked that her last name and hometown not be disclosed because she said she fears being targeted by groups opposed to cloning.
Yet while Little Nicky, who was delivered two weeks ago, frolics in his new home, the kitten's creation and sale has reignited fierce ethical and scientific debate over cloning technology, which is rapidly advancing.
The company that created Little Nicky, Sausalito-based Genetic Savings and Clone, said it hopes by May to have produced the world's first cloned dog -- a much more lucrative market than cats.
While it is based in the San Francisco Bay area, the company's cloning work will be done at its new lab in Madison, Wisconsin.
Commercial interests already are cloning prized cattle for about $20,000 each, and scientists have cloned mice, rabbits, goats, pigs, horses -- and even the endangered banteng, a wild bull that is found mostly in Indonesia.
Several research teams around the world, meanwhile, are racing to create the first cloned monkey.
Aside from human cloning, which has been achieved only at the microscopic embryo stage, no cloning project has fueled more debate than the marketing plans of Genetic Savings and Clone.
"It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University. "For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays."
Animals rights activists complain that new feline production systems aren't needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes.
Lou Hawthorne, Genetic Savings and Clone's chief executive, said his company purchases thousands of ovaries from spay clinics across the country. It extracts the eggs, which are combined with the genetic material from the animals to be cloned.
Critics also complain that the technology is available only to the wealthy, that using it to create house pets is frivolous and that customers grieving over lost pets have unrealistic expectations of what they're buying.
In fact, the first cat cloned in 2001 had a different coat from its genetic donor, underscoring that environment and other biological variables make it impossible to exactly duplicate animals.
"The thing that many people do not realize is that the cloned cat is not the same as the original," said Bonnie Beaver, a Texas A&M animal behaviorist who heads the American Veterinary Medical Association, which has no position on the issue. "It has a different personality. It has different life experiences. They want Fluffy, but it's not Fluffy."
Scientists also warn that cloned animals suffer from more health problems than their traditionally bred peers and that cloning is still a very inexact science. It takes many gruesome failures to produce just a single clone.
Genetic Savings and Clone said its new cloning technique, developed by animal cloning pioneer James Robl has improved survival rates, health and appearance. The new technique seeks to condense and transfer only the donor's genetic material to a surrogate's egg instead of an entire cell nucleus.
Between 15 percent and 45 percent of cloned cats born alive die within the first 30 days, Hawthorne said. But he said that range is consistent with natural births, depending on the breed of cat.
Austin, Texas-based ViaGen Inc., which has cloned hundreds of cows, pigs and goats, also is experimenting with the new cloning technique.
"The jury is still out, but the research shows it to be promising," company president Sara Davis said. "The technology is improving all the time."
Genetic Savings and Clone has been behind the creation of at least five cats since 2001, including the first one created.
It hopes to deliver as many as five more clones to customers who have paid the company's $50,000 fee. By the end of next year, it hopes to have cloned as many as 50 cats.
The company has yet to turn a profit.
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/23/gen.us.clonedcat.ap/index.html
 New $50,000 Dollar Clone
 Old Cat Cloned
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Dirt
Exercise Boy
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 2086
Location: a tree
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| Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:24 pm |
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She should just have gotten one from an asylum. Plenty one's there looking for a home, cheaper too 
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Spike001
Senior Cadet
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
Posts: 26
Location: Ohio
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| Sat Dec 25, 2004 8:18 pm |
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| Dirt wrote: | | She should just have gotten one from an asylum. Plenty one's there looking for a home, cheaper too |
I agree.
If you're gonna get a cloned pet, get something cool cloned, like a T-Rex
but, on a serious note, with all of the homeless cats and dogs around, do we really need cloned pets?
-------signature-------
"The difference between you and me is: I make this look good."
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Link, the Hero of Time
Vice Admiral
Joined: 15 Sep 2001
Posts: 5581
Location: Kokori Forest, Hyrule
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| Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:26 pm |
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She had the cat for 17 years, The psychological effects alone warrent her getting the cat cloned.
we are at the dawn of a new age. cloning will become more rampant and can save thousands of endangered species all over the world.
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Founder
Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 12755
Location: Gamma Quadrant
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| Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:31 pm |
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What? There are animals without homes now that die because of that reason. She didn't have to clone that cat. With that much money she could have gave many cats homes. She needs to learn to let go. If cloning your pet becomes rampant then that isn't exactly bad but that certainly isn't something we need. Kids will never learn to get over the loss of a pet if they just clone it. Its a fundemental lesson we ALL must learn. Death is a part of life. Hiding behind cloning won't change that. The lady is in denial and wants to pertend that her cat never died. Sometimes the pain of reality changes us and makes us grow up. Its something we need. I think Captain Kirk said it best in one of the movies when he said he wanted his pain. He didn't want to lose it becuase its what makes us who we are.
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Arellia
The Quiet One
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 4425
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Sun Dec 26, 2004 12:01 am |
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I totally agree with Founder. I find it just idiotic. Donate the money to someone or thing that'll actually use it, my gosh! She could've given a poor family more than a year's salary on that. So unnecessary, ylch.
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IntrepidIsMe
Pimp Handed
Joined: 14 Jun 2002
Posts: 13057
Location: New York
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| Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:07 am |
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Cute looking cat.
It's her choice, but I agree, she could have donated that money to a cat shelter, or something better, but hey. It's her money.
-------signature-------
"Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
-Wuthering Heights
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borgslayer
Rear Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2003
Posts: 2646
Location: Las Vegas
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| Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:54 pm |
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I wish they would clone dogs like clone lots of cocker spaniels.
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Angeldust
The Mob Queen
Joined: 28 Jul 2004
Posts: 6498
Location: In your most wonderful, screwed up dreams. :P
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| Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:56 pm |
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I want a clone of my dog! He is so cute! 
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"You want to dance with the angels? Then embroider me with gold; and I will fly with the angels...and you can dance with me."
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:57 pm |
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I agree that the woman should have donated the money to a much more worthy cause but hey its her life.
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borgslayer
Rear Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2003
Posts: 2646
Location: Las Vegas
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| Tue Dec 28, 2004 8:17 pm |
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| kmma wrote: | | I agree that the woman should have donated the money to a much more worthy cause but hey its her life. |
Well maybe she just wanted to have a cloned cat to prove to the world cats and other animals can be cloned.
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