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First Commercial Cloning of Pet Takes Place in Seoul

Aug 11th, 2008 • Posted in: News

For $50,000, California woman gets five puppies generated from ear tissue of her beloved late pit bull

SEOUL
A U.S. woman spent $50,000 to clone her beloved, deceased pit bull.

Bernann McKinney, a Hollywood screenwriter, told MSNBC that she couldn’t bear the thought of living without her late dog, which had saved her life when she was attacked by another dog, and also helped her as an assistance dog when she was confined to a wheelchair.

McKinney provided some tissue from the dog’s ear to South Korean scientists, who carried out what is believed to be the first commercial cloning of a pet, reports the Agence France-Presse, which notes that the company, called RNL Bio, could clone up to 300 dogs for wealthy pet owners next year.

The owner of the company, Lee Byeong-chun, says an affiliated university will provide ethical oversight into the process.

According to the Seoul-based Korea Times, the birth of the five cloned puppies “invites an endless list of scientific and ethical questions that won’t be answered quickly, if at all.”

Lee Byeong-chun was a member of the research team headed by Hwang Woo-Suk, the disgraced stem-cell scientist whose work was partially discredited because of research fraud, according to a report from Wired.

Sources: AFP, Aug. 7 — MSNBC, Aug. 7 — Wired, Aug. 7 — Korea Times, Aug. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 28 — Related Newsline story, May 27 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 7 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 19, 2007.

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