Sinogene produced China's first cloned cat last month

A Chinese biotech  company Sinogene aiming to cash in on people’s desires to duplicate their beloved pets has successfully cloned the nation’s first house cat, according to an announcement delivered at a press conference.

Sinogene produced China's first cloned cat last monthThe cloned cat — named Dasuan, or Garlic in English — is a British shorthair born naturally on July 21, 66 days after a successful embryo transfer. The company behind the procedure, Sinogene, began researching cat cloning last August. According to the Beijing-based biotech firm, the surrogate mother — who is not the same breed as the cloned offspring — is behaving “maternal enough,” and the kitten is in good health.

Garlic’s owner, Huang Yu, says he read about Sinogene in the news late last year. When his 2-year-old cat, the original Garlic, died from a urinary tract infection in January, he brought the animal’s body to a pet hospital in Wenzhou, a city in eastern China’s Zhejiang province. Veterinarians there were able to extract cells from the deceased animal to be sent to Sinogene in Beijing. After months of waiting, Huang finally got to meet the new Garlic on Monday, and became the country’s first owner of a cloned cat.

“I felt guilty for delaying treatment,” Huang told Sixth Tone, referring to the old Garlic’s dire medical situation. “Having him cloned makes up for my regret and gives me another chance to love him.”

Though the number of cats in China’s pet industry and the rate of cat ownership remain less than those of dogs, the “cat economy” has been steadily growing. According to a Chinese pet industry white paperreleased Thursday, the size of the domestic pet market is expected to reach 202 billion yuan ($28.6 billion) this year, up from 171 billion yuan in 2018. The domestic cat market is projected to reach 78 billion yuan in 2019, up 19.6% year over year — a growth rate that’s outpacing the domestic dog market. While there are still 55 million pet dogs in China compared with 44 million pet cats, ownership of the latter is also growing at a faster rate.

Sinogene cloned its first dog — Longlong, or Dragon — for medical research in May 2017 before offering the service commercially the following year. The company says it hopes to be cloning 500 dogs per year in the near future. “We decided to get into the cat business after witnessing the rising popularity (of cats) among China’s younger generations,” Zhao Jianping, Sinogene’s deputy general manager, told Sixth Tone during an interview last month.

 

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