The expanding market for pet cloning and cryonics offers owners three very different things: experimental medicines intended to address aging and related illness, a commercial route to create a genetic twin, and speculative storage of remains in the hope of future revival. They are often sold under the same emotional premise, more time with a companion, but the science and the limits are not interchangeable.
MIT Technology Review reports that Loyal is developing three potential longevity drugs for dogs and is testing one metabolic-health treatment in about 1,300 pet dogs in the US. That is a trial, not evidence that a life-extending medicine works or that one is available to pet owners. The report also describes testing of drugs aimed at age-related disease in dogs and a company focused on medicines for cats.
What is the difference between pet cloning and cryonics?
Cloning creates a new animal with the original pet's genetic material. Cryonics involves cooling and storing a dead animal's remains at very low temperatures, possibly indefinitely, on the expectation that future technology could revive it. No such reanimation is currently possible, according to MIT Technology Review, which reports that people in the field acknowledge it is unlikely for stored animals or people.
Alcor, an Arizona cryonics facility, stores the remains of hundreds of people and pets, MIT Technology Review reports. The facility recently announced it had cooled a pet sugar glider. Cooling remains is not a route back to a living animal with present-day technology.
Pet cloning, meanwhile, is already a marketed reproductive service. ViaGen Pets lists dog and cat cloning at $50,000 each, while its genetic-preservation service is listed at $1,600 plus a $150 annual storage fee. Those prices and services are company statements, not an independent assessment of the service's outcome or welfare record.
ViaGen says a veterinarian can collect tissue from a pet, after which the company cultures and cryopreserves cells. The cloning process uses material from one of those cells with a donor egg to create an embryo, which is grown in a surrogate animal. The animal born after gestation is a genetic twin, not the original pet returned.
That distinction is more than wordplay. MIT Technology Review describes the result as a genetic twin rather than an exact replica. Gemini Genetics, a company that says it works with ViaGen for UK and European customers, says environment and upbringing can shape personality and behavior. Sharing DNA does not establish that a new dog or cat will reproduce the lost animal's temperament, memories or relationship with its owner.
ViaGen describes cloning to customers as “a way to hold on.” That is marketing language, and it speaks to a genuine problem without resolving the biological one. Lori Kogan, a Colorado State University clinical-sciences professor cited by MIT Technology Review, says the loss of a pet can be socially unrecognized, leaving some owners isolated in their grief. She said cloning may bring some people peace.
The evidence base in the available material has hard edges. The longevity work is described as research and clinical testing, without trial results. The detailed cloning mechanism and pricing largely come from providers. And cryonics has no demonstrated means of reviving an animal. For grieving owners, biotech can offer experiments, cell storage, or a later-born genetic relative. It cannot reverse a death.
This story draws on original reporting from MIT Technology Review.
