Calls made for research programme into impact of cloning on animal health
Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, one of the scientists responsible for Dolly the cloned sheep, has called for a research programme to establish the impact of cloning on animal health, following the revelation that Dolly has arthritis at just five and a half years old. Professor Wilmut said that the condition may have arisen because of genetic defects caused by the cloning process, although there is no evidence to prove this. A study of the sheep's genetics in 1999 did however suggest that Dolly may be susceptible to premature ageing. 'There is no way of knowing if this is down to cloning or whether it is a coincidence. We will never know the answer to that question,' Professor Wilmut said. He called for a systematic assessment of the health of cloned animals, but conceded that scientists may be too commercially motivated for this to happen. 'This is a very young technique. It has great potential. As well as studying the animals that are there already, we have to continue with the process of improving and use the technology,' he said. Animal welfare groups are claiming that Dolly's condition is evidence that cloning is harmful to animals. 'Biology is not like Lego, it's not like Meccano, you can't just interfere with one aspect of an animal's system and expect the rest of the system to continue to function perfectly,' said Dan Lyons of the animal protection group CAGE. News of Dolly's condition came just two days after an offshoot company of the Roslin Institute, PPL, announced that it had produced five pig clones with organs which are unlikely to be rejected by human donor recipients due to the deactivation of the specific gene which causes humans to reject pig organs. Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Immerge Bio Therapeutics have since claimed that they were the first to produce such cloned piglets, with their litter having been born three months previously. Shares in PPL have fallen since the announcement of Dolly's arthritis, seeing a drop of 17.7 per cent during early trading on 4 January. Shares rose significantly earlier in the week however, when PPL announced the birth of the cloned piglets, with prices rising by 46.2 per cent.