Re-Pet a Reality

Posted by michael on Thursday December 23, 2004 @05:08AM from the double-your-pleasure dept.

tigerdarklord writes "The Sci-Fi concept of pet cloning has become a commercial venture. Genetic Savings & Clone now not only offers genebanking for your pet (alive or recently dead), but a full service cloning shop. Although they started by producing two clones of the CEO's cat, they have now produced their first commercial clone for a woman from Texas. GSC has modified their cloning procedure to overcome the resemblance issues demonstrated when the College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M, created CopyCat. The technology looks promising but the $50,000 price tag will prove to place the service out of the reach of most pet owners."

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But how long will it live? by TrevorB · 2004-12-23 05:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

OK, cloned cat, nice, but how long will it live?

People who read about cloning don't realize that the cloned cells have shortened telomeres. The Telomere acts as a cap to protect DNA as its copied. As cells reproduce, the telomere gets shorter and shorter until the DNA isn't protected anymore and you start seeing aging diseases.

Sure, this cat looks like a kitten, but at a cellular level, it's still an aged cat. It may not have much longer to live than its twin did if it lived out the rest of its natural life.

This is exactly what happened to Dolly the sheep. Dolly lived to be 6, about half the age of an average sheep.