Replicating pets is a waste of money and “ethically very dubious”, a leading expert has said following the birth of Britain’s first cloned dog.
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, one of the UK’s top stem cell scientists, joined anti-vivisection campaigners in condemning pet cloning.
He pointed out that cloning procedures frequently went wrong, leading to physical defects and ill health, and even when successful never produced an animal identical to the original.
“I see no valid justification for cloning pets,” he said. “It is a ridiculous waste of money and hope as well as being ethically very dubious.”
But Lovell-Badge, head of developmental genetics at the Medical Research Council National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), suggested that Winnie’s owner could be disappointed.
In reality, the ‘new’ Winnie was likely to be very different from her clone donor.
“Apart from similarity in outward appearance, you would have about as much chance of replicating your favourite pet by choosing one from Battersea Dogs’ Home as you would from cloning it,” said Lovell-Badge. “And the former is likely to be loved more as it will not fail your expectations.”
“Dogs, like humans, are not just a product of their DNA sequence and the genes this contains, which is all that the cloning procedure copies. Importantly, it is the activity of these genes in different tissues, from development of the embryo to the adult, that determines the physical characteristics of an individual.
“While much of this is programmed within the DNA, gene activity can be influenced by external factors, from the mother’s diet and hormone levels during pregnancy and lact-ation to what the animal itself eats and drinks.
“Levels of gene activity within cells are also never precisely controlled, there is always an element of chance. This can be further compounded by random mutations in DNA, which occur at a low level during cell division.
“These effects on gene activity explain why identical twins, which develop by the splitting of a single early embryo, do exhibit differences in appearance, and sometimes these are quite pronounced. Cloned animals are likely to be even more distinct from one another.”
He stressed that nurture played a big part in animal behaviour and personality as well as genes. Early life experiences, including inter-actions with the mother, siblings and human carers, all had a significant effect.
“Dogs are social, hierarchical, and can learn much from humans as well as other dogs,” Lovell-Badge added. “It is extremely unlikely that a puppy cloned from a favourite pet will grow up to behave the same way.”
Cloning failures resulted in abnormalities that led to stillbirths, animals born with defects, or “adults with compromised anatomy, physiology or health”.
“I personally think that cloning even remarkable working dogs would still be hard to justify, given the inevitable suffering that is associated with failed attempts,” said the professor.
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) urged people to be aware of the suffering and death involved in attempts to clone pets.
Katy Taylor, head of science at the BUAV, said: “Cloning is a very unpredictable and extremely wasteful process.
“In order to produce just one ‘perfect’ clone, many puppies with the same genes as a loved animal will be born.
“Some of these puppies will be aborted or will die soon after birth from unpredictable health complications and severe birth defects.”