Curiosity Cloned The Cat

Letting the Cat Out of the Genes

Thanks to popular culture, especially science fiction, the word “clone” can evoke bleak images of dystopian societies enacting population control or cautionary tales of scientists inadvertently unleashing bloodthirsty velociraptors on unsuspecting guests. But beyond cloning technology’s potential for enabling advancements in livestock production and health care, Westhusin claims its reality is more anodyne. “A clone is essentially no different than a genetically identical twin,” he explained.

He and Kraemer demonstrated as much when tasked with cloning Chance, a mild-mannered Brahman bull whose gentle disposition made him a great pet, shining screen presence and minor celebrity. As Chance grew old, his owners reached out to the researchers to see if they could take a sample of his tissue and produce a new bull that was just as docile. Born in 1999, 10 months after Chance’s death, the clone was dubbed Second Chance. And while he displayed an uncanny resemblance to his precursor, he never quite mellowed out the way his owners had hoped.

Around the same time, the ongoing media heyday around animal cloning inspired John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, to reach out to Kraemer and Westhusin in 1998 to clone his pet dog, Missy. With ample funding from Sperling, the researchers went to work on the “Missyplicity” project but promptly ran into a wall. “Dogs are very hard to clone,” Westhusin remarked. “Around the same time, though, word got around about the project, and we received a lot of public interest in cloning cats.”

Taking note of the interest, Sperling and the project’s other benefactors directed funds to create a feline facsimile. “It turned out that cats were way easier to work with,” Westhusin said. After eight months of trial and error, Texas A&M announced the birth of the first cloned cat on Dec. 22, 2001. Her name was CC.

Feline Fame

The announcement caused chaos in Aggieland as the researchers’ furry breakthrough received attention from The New York Times, BBC, The Times of India and other international news outlets. “For the first two or three days after the news broke, I sat in an office with the university’s public relations team,” Westhusin said. “They would hand me the phone with a reporter from across the world on the other end, and as soon as I was done with one call, they’d put me on another.” The press referred to CC as an abbreviation for “Carbon Copy” or “Copy Cat,” though Westhusin maintains that “CC” is her full, official name.

For her part, CC was an ordinary-looking cat set to live an ordinary life. Though her DNA exactly matched her genetic donor, a dark-haired calico named Rainbow, her fur coat was visibly different due to a chromosomal inactivation and other changes determined in the womb. Kraemer and his wife, Shirley, adopted the cat soon after she was born, and in 2006, she gave birth to three healthy kittens, the first offspring from a cloned pet.

After living a long, happy and healthy 18 years, CC succumbed to kidney failure on March 3, 2020. “CC was a great cat and a real joy,” Kraemer said in an article from the school soon after her passing. “She was part of the family and very special to us. We will miss her every day.” Now, the Smithsonian Institution is her final resting place in recognition of the part she played in making history.

Cloning technology and the field of genetics at large have advanced significantly since the world met CC. In vitro fertilization, which was still cutting-edge technology for livestock production during Westhusin’s undergrad years in the late ’70s, now accounts for 1-2% of all U.S. births. While he doesn’t see human cloning taking off anytime soon (as many worried in the wake of Dolly and CC’s announcements) due to safety issues and widespread ethical concerns, Westhusin has high hopes for gene therapy, tissue engineering and numerous other humanitarian advancements that he, Kraemer and their colleagues indirectly contributed to in bringing their four-legged miracle to life.

Update: Shortly after the publishing of this article, Dr. Mark Westhusin ’83 ’86 passed away on May 21, 2024.