Allergy-Free Kittens Produced

An anonymous reader writes "San Diego-based company, Allerca, said that using a technique known as genetic divergence, it has 'bred the world's first hypoallergenic kitten, opening the doors and arms of millions of pet lovers for whom cuddling a cat has, until now, been a curse ... After identifying the genes of kittens with proteins that provide less of a reaction in humans, they selectively bred litters over several generations to end up with an allergy-friendly super cat.' The company says its customers are expected to take delivery of their $4,000 hypoallergenic kittens in early 2007."

Comments

Re:slashvertizement...

[kfg]

Scientific Doubts

Denver Business Journal: Law Suit

KFG

We have a winner.

[TCQuad]

Hasn't this been on Slashdot before, a few months ago?

You are correct, sir.

Re:stop playing God.

[RyoShin]

From reading the article, it looks like they didn't do any genetic modification. Instead, they used genetic testing, and did selective breeding based on that testing to get a cat without the protein.

Allerca announced their plans three years ago, and started collecting deposits from allergic cat fans, but have now decided that their plans to use RNA interference were taking a back seat to a more traditional breeding approach, albeit one that uses genetic testing to select individuals that express low levels of FEL D1.

A link in that quote goes to a NewScientist.com article, which appears to have more details:

A California company has turned to conventional breeding to deliver the non-allergenic kittens it promised two years ago.

Re:Man, I hate cats

[B3ryllium]

You know, there's already a (possibly) hypoallergenic breed of cat from some russian genetic line ... they're cute, too.

Re:For my $4000....Offtopicish

[KDR_11k]

Some farmers sell their stuff for a premium because they are using "natural" methods for farming (don't recall the English term). They have certificates for that. If cross pollination caused your fields to be "infested" with GMO plants you lose that certificate AND you have to pay the patent holder a license fee for "using" their GMOs (while actually the producer or owner of the GMOs should have to pay you damages).

Here in Germany the conservatives push to broaden patent protection on genetically modified plants and prevent GMO infestations from counting as damage (spewing FUD about alienating the GM crop industry without these changes) while the social democrats push for restrictions on patenting organisms and laws to prevent GMO infestations. The stances on genetic modifications for medical purposes are reversed, the cons want to outlaw that while the dems want to further it. I think the situation is the same in the US. That's one of the things you should factor in when determining who to vote for.

for the article: i have a kitten at home, never seen it having any allergies, got the kitten
for free from a neighbour and saved 4k$ appearantly :D

You got it the wrong way around, these kittens won't trigger a cat hair allergy a human may have.