Belle’s life began thanks to a small sample of skin fabric. Today is an 8 -year -old kitten who has never met her sister who gave her life. His name was Chai and he disappeared before his birth for the complications of a surgical operation. His death threw his mistress in despair who, after discovering the existence of a company that allowed the cloning of pets, decided to replicate his beloved kitten. Today he has an Instagram profile in which he fights to “dispel the myths” on the cloning of pets.
What asked us to clone a pet
His is not an isolated case. Many VIPs have also decided to do the same. In 2018 Barbra Streisand announced that he had clone his dog, while the Argentine president Javier Milei boasts five clones of his dog, an English mastiff who died prematurely, who he called with the names of five ultra-liberal American economists.
We also tried to request the cloning of a dog and a domestic cat, addressing several specialized companies. The first company we write is the British “Gemini Genetics”. They specify that their task is to freeze and preserve the cells of our animal.
To clone our cat, whom we called “ball”, they ask us for a sample of epithelial fabric, which can be taken by our trusted veterinarian. The samples can be taken within 5 days of death. The “ball” cells will then be grown in the laboratory and hibernate, to then be ready to be cloned. At that point the material will be sent to Viagen Pets & Equine – a US company among the world leaders of animal cloning – who will take care of making a real twin of our cat who will keep us company after its departure.
Even the second company that we contact, the Croatian Petcloning.eu, says that it will deal with the conservation of the genetic material of our pet animal. He will then send him to his partners in China in due course: they are called Sinogene and they are another world of animal cloning giant.
A niche market with prohibitive costs
What we learn immediately, however, is that cloning is certainly not an option within everyone’s reach. Gemini Genetics, the first company contacted for “Callino”, informs us that we start from a base of over 700 euros only to preserve the genetic material of our cat, to which are then added almost 2 thousand euros for cell culture that precedes the last step, or the actual cloning and which costs over 46 thousand euros. The overall price to clone our cat therefore touches the fifty thousand euros. The costs of the second Croatian company are also around these figures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf5hgnraof8
We contact another Spanish feat, the Peterornity Genetics, with the request to want to clone our dog named Patty. In this case, the price that is made is more convenient, but still high: “We can’t wait to help you preserve the genetic testament of Patty”, they reply, making us know that their company makes very competitive prices. For cloning, plus the cost of the preservation of cells and cell culture, a total of “just” 41,400 euros are paid.
And if for dogs and cats the costs are the same, they leave definitely when we talk about horses. To be replicated are often racing specimens with particular characteristics and very rare in nature. In this case the price of the operation touches 80 thousand euros.
How the cloning process works
When on July 5, 1996, the first cloned mammal was born in Edinburgh, the sheep Dolly, the news aroused enthusiasm and global restlessness. Certainly for the scientific world it was an epochal goal. “The technique has remained the same, the problem is that today it is not yet efficient and works only with large numbers”, explains Professor Pasqualino Loi, professor of physiology and veterinary embryology at the University of Teramo, who between 1991 and 1994 worked in the research team that led to the Dolly cloning process.
The process can be summarized in a few steps. Ovocytes are taken from a female specimen, ready to be fertilized, which are “emptied” of chromosomes, that is, genetic heritage. Inside, the nucleus of the animal cell that you want to clone is then transferred. The nucleus is incorporated by the oocyte, to which an artificial stimulus is given that gives him the feeling of having been fertilized.
Here, however, the first problems often begin: “In 95% of cases the pregnancy is stopped within a few days, only from 1 to 5% of cases an animal is born, even if a specimen is often born that has abnormalities. Dog and in the cat “explains Pasqualino Loi.
Why does this happen? Because we are not using an embryo formed by the union of the chromosomes of a sperm and an egg, but from that of a single cell that has already differentiated, as in the case of the sample of epithelial tissue, and which must return to the embryonic state.
20 years after the death of the Dolly sheep because the man has not yet been cloned?
“A skin cell uses only that portion of chromosomes that allow it to create other skin cells, the same thing applies to all types of cells of our body, in the cloning there is a short circuit – observes Pasqualino Loi – to allow cloning, the oocyte must cancel all the information that the cell has accumulated during the differentiation process and must bring it back to zero point: if this process works, a healthy individual is born, otherwise this process is born. The animal dies during pregnancy. A detail that also justifies the high cost of cloning and that puts us in front of other genres of problems.
Ethical problems and the importance of scientific research
Yes, because at least in cases of pets, such as dogs or cats, the problem, not marginal, is animal welfare. To carry out cloning processes, in fact, you need females from which to extract the oocytes who, after being fertilized with skin cells, will then have to be implanted again in the oval of a surrogate mother. The latter will complete a pregnancy that is often problematic, as we have already explained above. A detail that raises doubts about the legitimacy of these operations.
Furthermore, the character of cloned pets does not always correspond to its natural twin: “Genetic background is important if we want to produce meat or milk, but the character is another thing. In the case of animals, as happens for us, it is above all the result of our interactions with the environment that surrounds us”, warns Pasqualino Loi.
In other areas, the use of cloning and genetic engineering techniques could however prove to be fundamental: “They are essential to save animals in the process of extinction. Furthermore, with the progress of global warming, cloning and genetic engineering techniques can be fundamental in selecting and replicating animals that have certain characteristics: for example they manage to produce milk even at high temperatures – Punctualizes Loi – not to mention the applications. Biomedical, or the production of animals from which to extract genetically modified organs, to be used for human transplants or to produce animal models of human pathologies, so as to study them more efficiently “.
Beyond the commercial aspects, in short, the potential, as well as the many bioethical implications, are relevant. Certainly, however, the research must progress and it must not be a taboo, as Professor Loi points out: “Cloning is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the last century, there are certainly problematic aspects, but if it is not done basic research, not even the techniques can progress. Then we must understand how we want to use them”. Because, if the ethical implications remain standing in all cases, clone animals as a company of wealthy rich and fight incurable diseases or the hunger of the world are certainly not the same thing.