As the debate over cloning continues to heat up, one of the leading research companies in the field has put together a Web site that not only explains the process but offers some surprising real-life examples of projects currently underway involving animals.
Could your family pet be next?
After checking the site, journalists should find several story ideas.
Advanced Cell Technology is in the cloning business and its Web site pulls no punches as it advocates … and illustrates… what it says is simply “giving Mother Nature a hand in producing duplicates of animals.”
While the company has indeed been involved in human embryonic stem cell research, most of its current work involves animal cloning, specifically of dairy and beef cattle.
The site offers pictures and straightforward explanations of what is involved… and what’s at stake.
A slide and video show details, from a microscopic view, the various processes of cloning.
And a photo gallery shows the results – cloned calves, chickens, mice and an animal from an endangered species called a gaur, which sort of looks like a water buffalo. Scientists from the company successfully cloned a gaur that was born last January after being implanted and carried to delivery in a cow.
What are the implications of this? The site suggests that cloning your pet is one possibility. In fact, you can even arrange to have cells from Fido stored until the process is perfected.
There’s a short feature any editor would welcome.
The site is a good primer on the subject for any journalist. As science and medicine keeps colliding with ethics and emotion, it offers lots of background information and links to researchers in the field who have actual experience.
