July 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the birth of the first cloned mammal - the famous Dolly the sheep, which has become a genetic copy of its donor mother. What has recently seemed like a science fiction topic has become a real part of scientific and technological progress. Today's development of genetic engineering has led to the transition from sensation to ordinary everyday life, when everyone can get a copy of almost any animal - if, of course, they have the necessary funds.
16 years in the freezer
Since 2005, the most renowned commercial animal cloning venture has been South Korea's Sooam Biotech Foundation for Biotechnology Research. The company's specialists claim that during this time they managed to grow more than 700 copies of dogs and other animals.
In 2009, the cloning of a male shepherd named Trakr, which belonged to the former Canadian policeman James Symington, took place here. The dog became famous for finding many people under the rubble of the World Trade Center after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 - and eight years later, he was dying from the effects of poisonous gas poisoning during that work on the ruins.
Sponsors paid all expenses, which amounted to 144 thousand dollars.
Scientists managed to grow several embryos from Trekra's genetic material, they were placed in the womb of a surrogate mother dog. During gestation, the heroic dog-father died. Five puppies were born at once, one of them was named Deja Vu by a former policeman.
In 2015, at the same center, the dog was cloned 12 days after her death.
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Boxing dog Dylan lived in the family of Lara and Richard Remde from Yorkshire (UK) and died of a heart attack. His body was temporarily placed in a refrigerator, after which the owners turned to South Korean specialists.
Sooam Biotech has timed the clones to appear on December 26, Dylan's birthday. Just in case, several embryos were grown and placed in the womb of surrogate mother dogs at once. One puppy was actually born on the scheduled day, the second one three days later. The cost of cloning cost the couple 100 thousand dollars.
The scientists explained that a week and a half in the freezer had little effect on the properties of the genetic material. As an example of a much more serious period, the case of obtaining clones from the cells of a mouse, after death, lay in a freezer at a temperature of -20 ° C for 16 years, was given.
40 percent success
Nevertheless, the workers of the Sooam Biotech Foundation, in written explanations for those who want to clone a pet and do not know how to do it, point out in the first point that the chances of taking high-quality genetic material are much greater during the life of the animal. The dog or cat must be taken to the veterinarian to cut a small (about eight millimeters in diameter) piece of skin from the abdomen. It should be placed in a freezer box (such as a container of liquid nitrogen) and sent to Sooam Biotech Clinic.
In case of death, the body of the animal should be wrapped in wet towels that prevent drying out and placed in the freezer. As many samples of genetic material as possible should be sent to the cloning center to increase the likelihood of a successful result.
The initial task of Sooam Biotech biologists is to find cells suitable for further action. They are placed in a nutrient medium, and in 1-2 weeks they are ready for cloning.
Then comes the stage for which many people condemn the clinic staff. Specialists start operations on two animals from the nursery available at the clinic. One of them will be an egg donor, the other will be a surrogate mother. These dogs or cats can be used only once, their further fate is questionable. The employees of the company assure that the animals are then kept in good conditions until they die naturally.
Using a laser, an incision is made in one of the animals and the ovaries are removed to collect one or more eggs. They end up in a laboratory, where, with the help of a microscope and an ultra-sensitive robotic arm, a nucleus is removed from each egg, which is replaced by the nucleus of a cell to be cloned.
Then the renewed egg is subjected to a weak electric shock, as a result of which the new nucleus merges with the donor cell.
Such a cell is introduced into the uterus of a second animal, a surrogate mother. Four weeks later, Sooam Biotech confirms that she is pregnant - or the whole cycle repeats. According to scientists, the rate of successful cloning is just over 40%.
New clone factory
In response to an anticipated increase in orders, Sooam Biotech opens a new commercial animal cloning facility in China. The main directions of her future activities have already been determined: reproduction of pets, farm animals, racing horses, service dogs and rare endangered animals and birds. The operation of the enterprise will begin in 2017, it is located in the city of Tianjin, located in the north-east of the country.
The construction of the factory will cost 200 million yuan (about $ 30 million). In addition to research and production facilities, it is planned to open a museum for tourists and a bank of genetic materials. According to the authors of the project from Sooam Biotech, up to 100 thousand embryos will be grown at the new factory a year, and in the future this figure may increase several times.
In addition, the enterprise will implement a project affecting the state interests of the PRC - cloning high-quality cows with the aim of further creating a large number of herds that will allow the country to enter the world beef market.
Two orders in two years
The opening of a factory in China should help solve the main problem of modern commercial cloning - reducing its cost.
It was precisely because of the high prices for services that the Californian company Genetic Savings & Clone closed in 2006, offering customers the creation of copies of their favorite cats. The first of them was cloned by the company's specialists in 2001. The kitten-girl was named Sisi (from the initial letters of the English words Carbon Soru - "exact copy"). For her birth, 87 embryos were used, and in only one case was cloning successful. Sisi did not have any health problems, after a few years she herself became a mother, having given birth to three kittens.
However, experts drew attention to some circumstances. First, the color of the cloned animal did not completely match the color of the biological mother's coat. And secondly, the character of Sisi also differed from the temperament of the cat, from which the biological material was taken. The company's employees concluded that cloning does not guarantee a complete match, because both the appearance and the character of a living creature are determined not only by a set of genes, but also by the influence of the environment.
Nevertheless, the company Genetic Savings & Clone in 2004 announced the acceptance of orders for cloning cats, the cost of the service was 50 thousand dollars. But over the next two years, the company's specialists completed only a couple of orders. Even the price reduction to $ 32,000 did not help - the enterprise went bankrupt, and several more companies in the United States announced the curtailment of such projects.
The Chinese clone factory, designed for hundreds of thousands of operations per year, will undoubtedly help reduce their cost - and, accordingly, increase the number of customers. True, so far this is a matter of the near, but still the future.
Rebirth of mammoths and dinosaurs?
Orders for the reproduction of rare and extinct animals, which could come from scientific and environmental organizations, seem to be much more promising.
For example, in Spain in 2009, a cloned representative of the subspecies of the mountain goat, Bucardo, was born, completely disappearing by 2000, when the last female named Celia died. Scientists at the Agricultural Research Center took a few millimeters of Celia's skin before she died and preserved it. The genetic material was used to create embryos, which were placed in the womb of female wild goats of other subspecies. Out of 439 embryos, 57 were implanted, and only one goat gave birth to a female bucardo. True, the cloned specimen died seven minutes after birth due to problems with the respiratory system.
Despite the apparent failure, it is clear that only with the help of such operations can the extinct animals be revived. Currently, many researchers are actively working in this direction. In particular, ornithologists are investigating whether cloning can be carried out in cases where the genetic material is taken from stuffed birds. Recent experiments are showing encouraging results - the latest molecular biology techniques are making it possible to isolate and reproduce the DNA of a bird from pieces of skin from a stuffed animal.
The same applies to ancient extinct animals - mammoths or dinosaurs. The theoretical possibility of their reproduction exists. In 2015, scientists at Harvard University managed to modify several elephant cells to match their DNA structure with mammoth cells extracted from permafrost. This is a major step towards further cloning brown giants.
The revival of extinct animals or the creation of individuals with given qualities are only gaining strength. But any biologist understands: it is these processes that are now at the forefront of science and contribute to the solution of the most urgent theoretical and applied problems.
Anastasia BABANOVSKAYA