With the advances of genetic knowledge and engineering techniques I guess that it is now conceivable to try to engineer a 'perfect pet', some animal which would be soft, hairy, conveniently sized, sweet, loyal, resistant to major diseases etc, imagine being able to have a sort of small non-aggressive lion as pet, or a playful, active and sweet sort of Koala or things like that.

There could be a huge business awaiting there, a genetically engineered 'perfect pet animal'. We wondered how come big corporations are not investing in this idea.

Do you think this is feasible?

If it's not yet, there's no doubt that it will be eventually. What are your thoughts about the idea?

Are there laws preventing genetic engineering research in this direction? Should there be?

What would be your personal stance if such a genetically engineered 'perfect pet' would be marketed?

Well, generations on most pet-like animals are not long so that would not be a big problem.

Yes sure, what I meant is, genetic engineering seems to be a faster path given current technology, isn't it strange that big corporations aren't investing in this potential business?

 

Also, while pet provisions (food, pharmaceuticals, etc) is a mult-billion dollar multi-national industry pet supply is essentially a localised cottage industry by comparison - the value of the market is too small for big corporations. We don't have huge factory farms knocking out production lines of Tibbles™ the Kat and Fido™ the Dawg - pets are supplied by lots of small specialist breeders in incredible small numbers because pets are not a consumable. In fact domestic pets like cats, dogs, mice, rabbits, goldfish etc. are such prolific little buggers they tend to multiply without too much encouragement so many people don't even obtain them from these small-scale specialist breeders but from other owners' whose moggy spent the night out on the tiles one balmy evening in June and now has a litter of kittens that are "free to a good home". With that kind of infrastructure the big boys don't stand a chance of competing.

 

I don't really see a problem with a half-cat half-stapler.  Suppose you're petting your cat and suddenly find yourself needing to staple some paperwork together.  This could solve that problem easily. 

 

In fact, I'd also like to see half-cat/half-dishwasher, half-cat/half-word processor, half-cat/half-tax preparation software.  Think of the applications. 

 

 

Also, this is an interesting concept. Some of which I'm sure I agree with.

1. Company that claims that they will clone your pet dog so you can 'have it again' after it died.

http://myfriendagain.com/default.htm" rel="nofollow - http://myfriendagain.com/default.htm

2. Cross-breeding experimentation in cows / bulls led to these anomalous breeds where the gene that controls muscle growth was suppressed, resulting in these 'double-muscle' animals, despite the apparent benefit of producing more meat, due to several issues they have not been clearly proven to be more economically efficient.

All in all bit scary, the Island Of Doctor Moreau 

http://www.hemmy.net/2007/07/16/belgian-blue-cattle-super-cow-aka-incredible-hulk-cow/" rel="nofollow - http://www.hemmy.net/2007/07/16/belgian-blue-cattle-super-cow-aka-incredible-hulk-cow/

A funny case which brings another important question: How much can /should we trust the internet?

Believe it or not , my sister is a biochemist and her husband is the dean of Barcelona biochemistry university, so they are both obviously smart people and more than familiar with genetic engineering, and yet even she was fooled for a very short time when the Genpets stuff came out years ago.

Just as another trivial example concerning a far less important subject, during my recent research about music instruments for my blog article, some sources said that Roland cooperated with Ibanez to build the G-303 guitar synthesizer instrument, while other sources deny this. Who's right?

In the modern internet world anybody can publish what they want or believe. How can we tell what is objectively true or is not?

I believe that it was the parent company of Ibanez (Hoshino Musical Instruments) who Roland collaborated with on the G303 and they were manufactured by FujiGen Gakki (Fuji Stringed Musical Instruments) ... who also manufactured for Ibanez, Fender, Yamaha, Epiphone and Gibson guitars.  Which would explain why some sources believe Ibanez were involved and some do not. Essentially to make a playable guitar that could be taken seriously Roland had to get expertise from someone else and it would be more natural for them to approach a Japanese manufacturer than an American one for such a partnership.

The reality is already here:

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GloFish® http://www.glofish.com/" rel="nofollow - http://www.glofish.com/  

 

As long as you keep a large enough population to ensure a diverse enough gene pool, and take care that mating happens among members of different strains, you can still breed towards an 'eugenic' target without compromising too much the vulnerability of the species, that's what good breeders do.

An associated but different problem however is that breeded species populations tend to be overprotected from their natural predators, bacterial infections, parasites and other diseases, so gradually they loose the features which protected them from these threats, making them vulnerable, but the cause is not selective breeding itself but overprotection.

You can do selective breeding aimed at being more resistant, more successful at defeating predators etc, it's just that that's not what is usually done.