Biotech company offers cloned dogs for sale
May 26th, 2008 Posted in Pets GuideUnveiling a project called Best Friends Again, 
BioArts International says that it will clone five dogs to the highest bidders in a day of online auctions next month.
Cloning dogs has been a particular challenge for scientists as the animals have a complex reproductive system. An Afghan hound was cloned in South Korea in 2005 but this is the first time that private individuals have been offered access to the technology for their pets.
Lou Hawthorne, chief executive of BioArts, says he can vouch for the success of the technique after recently becoming the proud owner of three clones of Missy, a border collie-husky mix. Missy died in 2002 but Mr Hawthorne had taken genetic samples from her in 1997 and obtained more DNA from her after her death.
But in such a ground-breaking field, he is also offering a money-back guarantee if customers do not the clone is an identical twin of the original dog or if there are health problems.
As with previous developments in the cloning world, the announcement has prompted controversy. Most notably, BioTech is working with Dr Hwang Woo Suk, who headed a South Korean team that claimed fraudulently to have cloned human embryos and stem cells in 2004.
But Mr Hawthorne said that Dr Hwang was the “best” in the pet-cloning field and his work on the Afghan hound and the three new Missys had been independently verified.
Some biotech experts warned that the cloned versions would have very different temperaments, effectively making them new dogs, and genetic ethicists also expressed concerns about the implications.
Mr Hawthorne rejects such concerns. He says that he is enjoying seeing traits such as a mischievous streak and taste for steamed broccoli in the clones of Missy, his pet for 15 years.
BioArts said it has been granted the sole licence for cloning dogs, cats and endangered species using patented processes developed by Scottish scientists for the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Dolly became the world’s first successfully cloned animal in 1996 and lived until 2003.
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