Cloned kitty is real copy cat

No laughing matter, some ethicists say

RICK WEISS, THE WASHINGTON POST

Originally published Friday, February 15, 2002

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Scientists have created the first cloned cat, a domestic calico named "cc" that has immediately taken a curious and controversial place in history as the first cloned domestic pet.

Born Dec. 22 by Caesarian section in a university laboratory, the apparently healthy cat is the sixth kind of mammal to be created asexually from a single adult cell -- after sheep, mice, cattle, goats and pigs -- and the first "companion animal" to be cloned. Scientists said the ability to clone cats could eventually be a boon to biomedical research, but more immediately could satisfy what they said was a growing consumer demand for pet cloning services.

"There are lots of people interested in their pets, so why avoid it?" said Mark Westhusin, the lead scientist behind the project at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Criticism

But the feat drew intense criticism from animal care organizations, which have spearheaded efforts to reduce feline birth rates through nationwide spaying and neutering programs.

"Isn't it crazy that millions of animals are killed in shelters in this country every year and people are thinking so selfishly about cloning more of them?" said Mary Beth Sweetland, vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk, Va. "They could do so much more good by going to their local shelter and adopting an animal on death row."

The work was funded by Arizona millionaire John Sperling, who has given Texas A&M about $3.7 million so far to develop technology to clone his beloved dog, a border collie-siberian husky mutt named Missy. Although several pregnancies have been achieved, no Missy clones have survived to term. Parallel work on cats went faster, Westhusin said, in part because cat eggs grow and mature in culture dishes better than do dog eggs.

Cloning for dollars

To commercialize the work, Sperling two years ago created a Texas company called Genetic Savings and Clone, which holds the licensing rights to any proprietary pet-cloning techniques developed by the university's so-called "Missyplicity Project." The company hopes to make a profit by cloning people's pets -- including dead ones from whom a few cells have been preserved -- as well as endangered wild cats and specialized dogs such as those used on search and rescue teams or to guide the blind.

Lou Hawthorne, the company's chief executive officer, suggested Thursday there are tens of millions of dollars to be made through companion animal cloning services. But the new work, to be published in the Feb. 21 issue of the scientific journal Nature, suggests that it might be some time before cat cloning is efficient and profitable.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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