Puppy lovers in the United Kingdom may soon get a chance to extend their dog years, thanks to an odd new contest: A South Korean company wants to clone the most beloved U.K. pooch — again raising ethical questions about the practice of pet cloning.
Headed by a former stem-cell researcher named Woo-Suk Hwang, the sooam biotech research foundation has been cloning dogs and other animals for years, mostly for U.S. customers. Now, in an effort to expand into the British market, the lab has asked U.K. canine owners to submit a 500-word essay, along with photos and videos, demonstrating why their best friend's genes should live on, Sooam researcher hanna heejin song wrote in an email to LiveScience.
The chosen dog owner gets 70 percent off the usual $ 100,000 price tag for replicating Rufus. [10 Things You Didn't Know About Dogs]
Cloning Fido
The process then follows the now-established outline for animal cloning: Sooam researchers will perform a biopsy to extract a viable skin cell from the dog, inject DNA from that cell into another dog's egg cell (one that has been emptied of DNA) and implant the resulting embryo into the womb of a surrogate canine mother.
When successful, the process births a cloned puppy about two months after implantation, Sooam's website says. That “successful” part usually takes several attempts, though —
Hi 3dogs! Cheers for this. Great post. I’m a new reader to your blog so I thought I’d just drop a quick thanks.
this reminds me of one of my pets from when i was little, in the dead of winter when i was 6 or 7, my mum stopped the car on a dirt road because she saw a group of dogs chewing on something, she got out and went to see what it was, and she came back with a near frozen stiff tabby kitten. We took him home, got him warmed up, and fed him, we had him for a few weeks before his owners came to claim him. three months later, he showed back up at our front door, half starved and frozen…
All she wanted to do was get on the scooter and get home! Happy to see she was found.
he had spent those months walking nearly 50 miles, back tracking and found us, the next time his owners came calling we didnt give him back, we named him Mr. P and he lived to the ripe old age of nearly 12 years old. RIP my boy, you had a helluva walk
That’s awesome.
Needs Benny Hill music.
that dog needs more then a hot dog, more like some prime rib.
In the end of video
Sho Mei lost AGAIN ????
Since somebody set off fireworks did she run off again? Man, if she did that sucks..
lol
Ohhh I see
man that’s one looooong a** distance of walking for a dog her size! hurray
man that’s one looooong a** distance of walking for a dog her size! hurray
Fucking adorable!