A laboratory in South Korea is pioneering the cloning of pet dogs – providing owners with the chance to be reunited with their beloved pet after they have died.
The remarkable breakthrough has been developed by Sooam Biotech on the outskirts of Seoul, and dog owner Junichi Fukuda paid $100,000 for the procedure after beloved pug Momoko died. He worked with Sooam to take a cell sample of the dog shortly before she died last year, and his clone was ready only three months later.
As for the scientific part of the whole thing, dog owners are first required to take an 8-millimetre biopsy from their pet’s abdomen before placing it into a plastic-foam box and mailing it to Sooam. It’s then up to biologists to sterilise the sample, isolate certain cells and cultivate them especially for the process. But the most controversial part of the whole process comes as a pair of lab-rental dogs act as both an egg donor and a surrogate mother – which has been likened to animal testing by animal rights protestors.
Speaking when the first dog was cloned in 2005, lab pioneer Dr Woosuk Hwang said: ‘I want to be remembered in history as a pure scientist. ‘I want this technology applied to the whole of mankind.’