Grieving the death of a pet can be a sad and lonely experience, but would you pay a year's salary to get your furry friend back?
A Canadian woman has done just that. Chris Stewart of British Columbia paid $50,000 to buy not one, but two clones of his deceased ragdoll cat, Bear.
Bear tragically passed away in January 2022 at the young age of 5 after being hit by a car. Her new cats, Bear Bear and Honey Bear, are genetic twins of her beloved pets.
The new kitten was created through somatic cell cloning, which involves transplanting the nucleus of one of the bear's cells into a new egg cell.
The egg was then implanted into a surrogate mother, and the kitten was born with 0% of her DNA but 100% of the bear's DNA.
Chris Stewart and Texas-based biotech company ViaGen's new cloned kittens, Bear Bear and Honey Bear.
Stewart's previous cat, Bear, died in a car accident when he was just five years old.She wanted him back so she cloned him
“I felt Bear had more work to do,” Stewart told CBC.
So she contracted the services of ViaGen, a Texas-based company that bills itself as “the world leader in cloning the animals we love.”
After Bear Bear and Honey Bear were born to a surrogate mother on January 10 of this year, they spent two months at Viagen's New York facility.
And Stewart was allowed to take them home this week.
“They both look like bears,” she said. “These guys are bold and brash.”
The cat that died was mischievous and highly intelligent, she told CBC.
“I think bears are the smartest animals I've ever had. I've had them since I was two years old,” Stewart explained.
In addition to cats, ViaGen also offers cloning for horses.
The dog and cat cost $50,000 and the horse $85,000.
According to Stewart's LinkedIn, she is the chief executive of a nurse staffing agency.
This industry has proven especially lucrative since the coronavirus pandemic.
Weekly wages for travel nurses have soared to $3,000 to $5,000, up from $1,000 to $2,000 before the pandemic.
DailyMail.com has reached out to her for comment.
Stewart hugs her new cloned cats, Bear Bear and Honey Bear, who were brought home together this week after spending eight weeks at the Viagen facility.
Chris Stewart said the bear trying to open the door here was very smart.She said she thinks the clone has acted the same way he has so far.
As far as technology goes, ViaGen uses somatic cell nuclear transfer to clone pets.
This is the same technique used to produce the famous Scottish sheep Dolly.
Somatic cell cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer or simply nuclear transfer, is simple in concept but difficult to execute.
It involves removing DNA from a donor's cells (in this case somatic cells, denoted by the word “somatic cells”).
To create a somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) clone, scientists remove DNA (red circles) from tissue and insert it into egg cells (yellow) from which the DNA (green) has been removed. Scientists then turn on or off certain genes to help cells replicate (right)
The egg cell's DNA is then removed and replaced with donor DNA.
This altered egg cell is then implanted into a surrogate animal.
When a surrogate mother gives birth, the baby is genetically identical to the animal that provided the somatic cells and has no relation to the surrogate mother.
Cloned animals often do not survive after birth, but they tend to do well if they are born healthy.
This was ViaGen's third attempt at cloning Bear, as the first two attempts failed.
The kittens are genetically twins with Bear, but that doesn't mean they'll have the same personality.
In an extreme example, Texans Ralph and Sandra Fisher cloned their beloved bull named Chance, only for the clone to stab Ralph twice.
But for now, the entrepreneur said he's “excited” about his new cat.
