Genetic Savings & Clone

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Genetic Savings & Clone, Inc. was a company headquartered in Sausalito, California that offered commercial pet gene banking and cloning services, between 2004 and 2006.

Contents

History

The company was founded as a result of the efforts to clone Lou Hawthorne's favorite family dog, Missy. The Missyplicity project generated enough interest that Lou Hawthorne decided to build a company devoted to dog and cat cloning.

The company opened for business in February 2000, funded production of the first cloned cat, CC, in 2001, and launched its pet cloning service in February 2004, operating a "petbank", to which pet owners could send tissue samples for later use in cloning. The company delivered the world's first commercially cloned cat, Little Nicky, in December 2004. Little Nicky was sold to a Texas woman for a reported US$50,000. He was a genetic twin of "Nicky," a 17-year-old Maine Coon cat that had been kept as a pet. Musician Liam Lynch's cat was cloned after its death, presumably making him the first celebrity to own a cloned pet.

As well as their success in cloning cats, the company also made significant advances in dog cloning research, although the technology was not mature enough to sustain the business. The company closed in 2006. Letters to this effect were sent out to clients at the end of September 2006, informing them of this decision and offering to transfer any genetic material to another facility. [1]

Controversy

The company spurred widespread debate regarding the ethics and morality of pet cloning especially in light of the fact that animals are euthanized by their owners every day. Though the topic lost currency with the closure of the company, divergent arguments about these issues can still be found on some web sites. [2]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dog food</span> Food intended for consumption by dogs usually made from meat

Dog food is specifically formulated and intended for consumption by dogs and other related canines. Dogs are considered to be omnivores with a carnivorous bias. They have the sharp, pointed teeth and shorter gastrointestinal tracts of carnivores, better suited for the consumption of meat than of vegetable substances, yet also have ten genes that are responsible for starch and glucose digestion, as well as the ability to produce amylase, an enzyme that functions to break down carbohydrates into simple sugars – something that obligate carnivores like cats lack. Dogs evolved the ability living alongside humans in agricultural societies, as they managed on scrap leftovers and excrement from humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CC (cat)</span> Cloned cat

CC, for "CopyCat" or "Carbon Copy", was a brown tabby and white domestic shorthair and the first cloned pet. She was cloned by scientists at Texas A&M University in conjunction with Genetic Savings & Clone Inc. CC's surrogate mother was a tabby, but her genetic donor, Rainbow, was a calico domestic longhair. The difference in hair coloration between CC and Rainbow is due to X-inactivation and epigenetic re-programming, which normally occurs in a fertilized embryo before implantation.

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The Missyplicity Project was a project devoted to cloning Joan Hawthorne and John Sperling's dog, a border collie and husky mix. Missy died on July 6, 2002, at the age of 15.

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References

  1. "Dead Cats to Remain a Memory" WIRED Magazine. Archived 31 July 2014
  2. "blog.bioethics.net". Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2007-08-22.