Will Pet Cloning become the Test Bed for Vertebrate Germline Transformation

[BillTre]

After reading this NY Times article on the possibility of cloning pets becoming a viable business in China, I was wondering if it might also become an area where germline modification might be more extensively tested and worked out.
Why this might happen in China:

• large size of domestic pet market
• a large apparent interest in cloning of pets
• a lack of controversy, restrictions, and rules concerned with pet GM
• steadily increasing Chinese expertise in molecular genetics

Restrictions on GM modifications of food organisms (in markets like Europe, at least, not sure about what coulntries this applies to) seem to limit the large scale use and further development of GM technologies on food organisms.
An established pet cloning industry, on the other hand, could provide a base for more interesting germline modifications of pets in the future, which would seem to be a logical prerequisite to any such human modifications.

 

[russ_watters]

Restrictions on GM modifications of food organisms (in markets like Europe, at least, not sure about what coulntries this applies to) seem to limit the large scale use and further development of GM technologies on food organisms.

If you want to leave open the option to eat your dog.