Seoul - A South Korean biotechnology company has produced five genetic copies of an American woman's late pitbull terrier in what the firm on Tuesday hailed as the world's first successful commercial dog cloning service. RNL Bio Co produced the puppies for Bernann McKinney of Hollywood, California, in cooperation with Seoul National University, whose researchers cloned the first dog three years ago.
McKinney, whose beloved pitbull terrier Booger died two years ago, paid 50,000 dollars for one clone after RNL offered her a discount on the original 150,000-dollar price tag, The Korea Times reported. Now, however, it looks like she'll be taking home three puppies while the other two remain at the university for research purposes, the English-language newspaper said.
The puppies were born last week at a university laboratory to two surrogate mothers, according to the university's cloning team.
They were made from genetic material taken from Booger's ear that was implanted into eggs whose nuclei were removed. These "fertilized" eggs were then implanted into the surrogate mothers.
The Seoul National University team that carried out the procedure said it had confirmed the five puppies were exact copies using DNA tests.
The university produced the first cloned dog, an Afghan hound named Snuppy, in 2005. That team was led by Hwang Woo Suk, who was once hailed as a national hero before being embroiled in a scandal over falsified data on 2004 and 2005 studies in which he not only claimed to have cloned human stem cells but also to have developed patient-specific stem cells.
Hwang was fired by the university and went on to found the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, which is competing with RNL Bio to sell cloned dogs. Both labs are made up of scientists who worked on Hwang's original dog-cloning team, and both are battling over patents for cloning rights.
In June, RNL Bio presented four dogs it had cloned from a cancer-sniffing retriever while in May, Sooam Biotech Research itself claimed to be the first to commercially clone a dog after producing three copies of a dead collie-husky mix.
After that successful cloning attempt, the California firm BioArts International began working with Sooam to offer online auctions for cloned dogs.
