China plans cloning factory

The first-of-its-kind cloning factory is due to open in Tianjin, China, and aims to revolutionise the beef industry by producing one million cloned cows per year. Sniffer dogs, racehorses and even beloved family puppies will also be cloned in the massive, government-sponsored factory.

Chinese farmers have struggled to keep pace with the burgeoning global demand for beef. And the number of cattle ready for slaughter has increased from 13m in 1991 to 47m in 2011, according to data from Research and Market.

Soaring demand is said to have tripled the price of beef from 2000 to 2013 in China. But a giant cloning factory will change everything.

State-of-the-art ​

The 200 million yuan (£21m) commercial facility is being built by Boyalife Group, a Chinese company focusing on stem cell and regenerative medicine research. Their state-of-the-art centre is set to push the boundaries of commercial biotechnology further than anyone else has done in the world.

It “will produce 100,000 cattle embryos a year initially, eventually increasing to one million​”, said Xu Xiaochun, chairman of Boyalife Group. The site will – unsurprisingly – be the largest cloning facility in the world and will include a “gene storage area and a museum​”, Xiaochun added.

China has been looking for ways to industrialise cloning ever since Dolly the sheep became the first cloned mammal in 1996. And since the turn of the millennium, Chinese scientists have successfully cloned cattle, pigs and sheep.

Unprecedented​

But doing so on an industrialised scale is uncharted territory, although it is hoped the unprecedented move will push the controversial practice of cloning closer to “mainstream acceptance​”, said Xiaochun.

The facility is a joint venture between China’s Boyalife Group and South Korean firm Sooam Biotech Research Foundation. It will be located in a government-sponsored business development park, in the northern port of Tianjin.