CHINA is building the world’s largest commercial animal cloning factory.
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The factory will be based in the northern port city of Tianjin and will clone animals including beef cattle, sniffer and pet dogs, and racehorses.
The main building is already under construction and due to be put into use in the first half of 2016. The site will also include a gene storage area and a museum.
The factory, worth 200 million yuan (31 million US dollars), will be jointly built by Sinica, Peking University, the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine, and the Republic of Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.
Chairman of Boyalife Group, parent company of Sinica group, said it would produce 100,000 cattle embryos a year initially, eventually increasing to one million.
He said the factory would help them deal with critical supply issues.
“Chinese farmers are struggling to produce enough beef cattle to meet market demand,” he said.
Scientists have cloned mice, cattle and other animals since the world's first cloned sheep, Dolly, was born on July 5, 1996, in Britain.
