China building world's largest animal cloning factory

China is building the world’s biggest animal cloning factory to recreate sniffer dogs, racehorses, pets and beef cattle.
In this regard, Chinese scientists have signed a deal to create a commercial animal cloning centre in Tianjin, north-eastern China.
Key facts

• The factory would be built in the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Area (TEDA) which is a business development park sponsored by the government.
• It is joint project of Chinese biotechnology firm Boyalife and South Korea’s Sooam Biotech. Peking University and Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine are also part of it.
• The cloning factory will include cloning laboratories, a gene bank and a science education centre and will be constructed at the cost of 31 million US dollars.
• It would produce cloned animals such as pet and police dogs, racehorses and cow to be sold on the open market on an industrial scale.
• The factory would produce 100,000 cattle embryos annually and later expand the annual output to one million. It would help to produce enough beef to meet increasing demand.

It should be noted that China’s first commercial animal cloning centre was established in 2014 in the eastern Shandong Province. Since 2000, Chinese Researchers have cloned sheep, cattle and pigs but not for non-scientific research. In 2009, South Korea’s customs service had deployed the world’s first cloned dogs.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2015