"In my heart Garlic is irreplaceable... but he was unable to have heirs, which is why I decided to clone him."
I will continue to report the name Garlic for the cloned kitten: the idea of a feline called Aglio strange to me, even if for a Chinese it is a miraculous thing.
For pet owners, losing a furry friend can be devastating. Today, technological advances offer the possibility of having these faithful friends alongside you for longer, cloning them.
The NYT reports the story of 22-year-old Huang Yu, who recently decided to bring his beloved Garlic, a gray and white kitten who died two years from a urinary tract infection, to light.
The first cloned cat in Chinese history came out, and of course his name is Garlic.
To create double his kitten, Huang hired Sinogene, an animal cloning company based in Beijing. Sinogene has already successfully cloned more than 40 dogs of different species, both for individuals and for medical research purposes.
The most notable clone was a Kunming wolfdog puppy, a widespread breed in China. Little Kunxun, this is his name, is the replica of a famous Chinese police dog, a sort of Rex with almond-shaped eyes. The idea was to reproduce a specimen of extraordinary intelligence to allow the department to spend much less time and money on training.
It is not cheap
The Sinogene procedure has a considerable price: cloning a dog costs the owner an average of 53000 dollars, while a cat is more "accessible" and costs 35000 dollars.
The difference is due to the longer "culture" time that a dog's eggs have compared to those of a cat.
IFLScience notes that beyond the timing it is the cloning of cats to be more complex because its physiological and reproductive characteristics are different from those of other mammals.
“The reproductive cycle of cats is special, and cloning techniques encounter more difficulties,” says the vet Shi Zhensheng in a Sinogene press release. “The cloning of Garlic is one of the few success stories in the world” (on Futuroprossimo you will find at least one more).
Garlic's return
To get Garlic 2.0 out, the Sinogene team extracted skin cells from the original cat (jealously guarded in the freezer by its owner) and implanted them in the eggs of other cats.
The embryos obtained from this procedure were then implanted in 4 surrogate mothers. This resulted in 3 pregnancies: two ended in abortion and one gave birth to Garlic. In all, the cloned kitten took 7 months to process.
Image Credit: Well Pet Coach
This may seem like a long time, but it attests to China's advances in genetics. Of course, this rapid growth also reflects the absence of any legal barriers in China and the consequent rush to exploit a science that has great potential for profit.
Market research by the Gouminwang agency shows the rapid rise in popularity of cats in China (another "motivator" for Sinogene's choices). China's pet market will reach 28 billion euros this year: there are already 55 million (domestic) dogs and 44 million cats around the country. Garlic joins them. By the way! Here it is in action:
However, in the first meeting between the "revived" cat and its owner, Huang noticed a detail. The kitten wasn't EXACTLY like its predecessor. This is because, while the genetic heritage of the cat is identical to that of its 'original', the physical appearance may present some small differences in the color of the fur or eyes.
Chinese cloned cat but it's not the same... I know what you're thinking.
“If I told you I wasn't sorry I would be lying to you,” Huang says about his cloned kitten. “But I accept that there are some situations where the technology needs to step up a little.”
DogYes, Mi Jidong, the CEO of Sinogene intends to accomplish, for example, to clone endangered species such as the Chinese panda and others.
In his ambitious declarations there is also the intention of exploiting artificial intelligence to transfer memories from the original animal to the destination one.
