A new world of engineered pets.

[Guest guest]

This is beyond scary!!!!

http://dailynews./h/nm/20010628/hl/cats_1.html

Thursday June 28 1:21 PM ET

A Brave New World of Cats Without Sneezing?

By Steve

NEW YORK (Reuters) - This is not to be sneezed at.

The man who created the first cloned mammal in the United States--Amy

the calf--is working on a new project: a genetically altered cat that

will not make allergic pet lovers miserable.

University of Connecticut professor Xiangzhong (Jerry) Yang said

Wednesday that such an allergen-free feline could be available by the

year 2003. But he claimed this was not the start of a new world of

engineered pets.

The no-sneeze cat was just an offshoot of his research into human

ailments like Parkinson's disease (news - web sites) or diabetes, he

said.

``We're just working with animal models,'' said Yang, who noted that

he is opposed to human cloning.

However, Yang, who heads UConn's Transgenic Animal Research facility,

is working with Transgenic Pets, LLC, a start-up biotechnology

company that plans to sell non-allergenic cats for $750 to $1,000

each. Company founder Dr. Avner is still looking to raise an

estimated $2 million to pay for Yang's research.

``For millions of Americans, owning a pet can cause serious health

problems,'' said Avner, an emergency room resident at a Syracuse, New

York, hospital. ``It is estimated that up to 15% of the US population

is allergic to pets, with cat allergies being twice as common as dog

allergies.''

Avner said the company he founded with his wife Jackie will use a

proprietary process to counteract the genes in cats responsible for

causing human allergies like asthma, sneezing, runny nose and itchy

eyes.

He said an allergen protein is secreted by glands in the cat's skin,

and coming into contact with the allergen causes a reaction in some

people. Yang is working on knocking out the gene that produces the

protein by taking cat cells and replacing them with genes that do not

cause a problem in humans.

The genetically altered cells will then be fused with egg cells from

which the genetic material has been removed, and the eggs will be

implanted in a surrogate mother.

Once some male and female allergen-free cats have been made this way,

more can be produced by conventional breeding. The technique is

similar to the way Yang cloned a calf at UConn in 1999, some 18

months after scientists in Scotland carried out the world's first

cloning of a mammal that produced Dolly the sheep.

Yang denied that producing such cats would lead to dogs that do not

chew up slippers or parakeets that will not squawk too loudly.

``Dogs? I won't even touch dogs,'' he told Reuters. ''They are a lot

more difficult than cats. We know even less about their reproductive

systems.''

He said the only reason he got involved with cats was that he and his

family are all highly allergic and his son suffered miserably one day

after being with a cat-owning babysitter.

Jackie Avner told Reuters that her husband had a patent pending that

applied only to pet-borne human allergens.

``We are just interested in the human medical condition of

allergies,'' she said, adding that she and her husband are looking

forward to the time when they could own a cat.

The news was not welcomed by the animal rights group People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which said allergic owners

already had the option of adopting one of the estimated 20 million

abandoned cats and dogs in US animal shelters.

``It's all a money game. I have no interest in what he says (about

medical research),'' said PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. ''There is

lots wrong with transgenic this and that. Many transgenic animals

have been found to have deformities which were not anticipated or

understood.

``We don't know what we're doing, but it won't stop people trying to

make money,'' said Newkirk.

The idea of genetically modifying animals to produce traits desirable

to humans is not new. One company is trying to genetically engineer

pigs whose organs can be transplanted into humans without being

rejected.

``It's not a big step from there to say, 'let's go to cats and modify

some of their characteristics','' said Pepin, vice president

of business development at Medarex, a Princeton, New Jersey-based

company that has genetically engineered mice to produce human

antibodies. ``You might be able to make them resistant to fleas, for

instance.''

Bert Innes, a biotechnology analyst at Agriculture and Agri-Food

Canada, said people want the perfect pet.

``Having them not shed is a good thing, and there are behavioral

things that could be done, as well as size and longevity,'' he said

at a biotechnology conference in San Diego.

``With just about anything you can think of that is wrong with a

pet,'' he said, ``you should be able to come up with a genetic

solution to fix them.''