Staff Writer

In a move criticized by animal cloning opponents and leaders in the stem cell community alike, BioArts International said Wednesday it will sell five dog cloning service slots to the general public via a worldwide, online auction on June 18.

The Mill Valley, Calif.-based biotech start-up, which works on untapped markets in the global companion animal, premium livestock and human genomics industries, was granted the sole, worldwide license for the cloning of dogs, cats and endangered species from Austin, Texas-based Start Licensing Inc., a joint venture of Geron Corp. and Exeter Life Sciences Inc.

Start Licensing manages and licenses a broad portfolio of intellectual property rights related to animal reproductive technologies, including foundational nuclear transfer cloning technology developed at the Roslin Institute, an entity famous for cloning Dolly the sheep.

The auction is part of the Best Friends Again program, a partnership between BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, a spinout of Seoul National University and home to the first dog cloning team in the world.

Registration for the auction began Wednesday, and participants must first be qualified to participate through a financial means test offered on the program's website www.bestfriendsagain.com, BioArts CEO Lou Hawthorne told BioWorld Today.

The first auction will begin at 6 a.m. on June 18 and will run for 24 hours. Subsequent auctions will be staggered over the next four hours on that day: at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Those auctions will run for 24 hours as well.

Hawthorne said that the auction times will be staggered to allow participants in every time zone to take part in the bidding. "We want to give everyone in the world the opportunity to have an auction that's convenient to their time zone, especially when the auction ends," he said.

Hawthorne explained the rationale for having a series of staggered auctions, noting that "people who are into auctions for expensive items, fine art, cars, homes, etc., are very strategic about the end of the auction, or what they bid when."

Opening bids for the auction will range from $100,000 to $180,000.

That also will serve as a tool for measuring the maximum possible bid for the service, according to Hawthorne. "You can learn a lot about how consumers will behave at price points below $100,000 because if you survey 20,000 people, there will be a few people in that survey that would be willing to pay prices below $100,000," Hawthorne said. "But if you do a survey where prices are above that," he added, "you might survey 20,000 people and find that no one who would be willing to pay that higher price, and that would erroneously lead you to believe that there isn't a market at that higher price point. When, in fact, your survey isn't big enough."

That spirit of profiteering is the root of many ethical concerns over the auction and pet cloning as a science.

Nina Mak, a research analyst with the American Anti-Vivisection Society, a group opposed to animal cloning, called the plan "just another money-making scheme. These companies know that people love their pets, and they're taking advantage of that."

Moreover, leading people to believe that they can revive a dead pet through cloning is deceptive, Mak said. "On the one hand, the companies acknowledge that you can't recreate a pet, but then they name their project Best Friends Again and talk about how you can have the same dog your whole life. That's really taking advantage of people's vulnerabilities and attachments to their pets," she said.

Mak noted that it is not possible to exactly replicate a pet's personality, or even its appearance, as evidenced by the first cloned cat, Cc. That clone, produced by Genetic Savings and Clone, a now defunct company out of South San Francisco, did not physically resemble its mother, to say nothing of its temperament.

Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technologies, a biotechnology company focused on applying stem cell technology in regenerative medicine, voiced a similar opinion. "Anyone who thinks they might be able to get Spot or Fluffy back is mistaken. Cloned animals have distinct personalities, just like identical twins."

Lanza also highlighted several ethical concerns regarding the health of cloned animals. "We've now cloned several dozen species, and all of our experience to date has indicated that there are abnormalities and genetic defects," he said.

In addition, he said a significant portion of animals die during gestation or during the first weeks of life. Indeed, Lanza pointed out that in the original study leading to the first cloned dog included a miscarriage and the death of one of the two cloned puppies. "Anyone who wants to clone their dog should think about that first, whether they would want Fluffy's twin put down," he added.

Mak also questioned if animals used in cloning procedures are treated humanely, noting that companies cloning pets are not subject to the Animal Welfare Act. "We think that if people knew what was involved in pet cloning, they would know to steer clear of it," she said. "For every cute little cloned kitten or puppy that they put out there, there are hundreds of cats and dogs kept in a lab that were subject to painful and invasive procedures."