Word: westhusin
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...never met a human worth cloning," says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from the cramped confines of his lab at Texas A&M University. "It's a stupid endeavor." That's an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two calves and expect to clone a cat soon. They just might succeed in cloning Missy this spring--or perhaps not for another five years. It seems the reproductive system...
...Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him vexed by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on the Missyplicity project, using hundreds upon hundreds of canine eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate mom. The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. "Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous," he says...
Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997, Westhusin's phone at A&M's College of Veterinary Medicine has been ringing with people calling in hopes of duplicating their cats and dogs, cattle and horses. "A lot of people want to clone pets. A lot of people. Especially if the price is right," says Westhusin, raising his eyebrows. "A lot." Cost is no obstacle for Missy's mysterious West Coast billionaire owner; he's plopped down $3.7 million so far to fund...