THE world's first commercial dog-cloning company has opened for business and taken a £75,000 order to reproduce a dead pit bull terrier which saved its owner's life.
The South Korean firm was originally established to clone specialist dogs, such as those involved in detecting drugs.
However, its first commission has come from a woman in the United States who wants scientists to clone her pet, called Booger.
But experts and campaigners last night warned that the result of the process would not even be as closely related to the original as a non-identical twin. They said the process would also cause animal suffering, as some clones are born with physical defects and others fail to survive.
The company, RNL Bio, is planning to deliver the animal in February next year.
RNL's chief executive, Ra Jeong-chan, said he expected up to 500 orders within a few years from rich pet owners.
He said: "We have been focusing on cloning specialised dogs, such as narcotic-detection dogs. But we won't refuse orders for pet dogs. There are many people who want to clone their pet dogs.
"I believe we can greatly lower the cost of cloning if we can double the yield (of fertilised eggs]," he added.
Mr Ra said that Booger's owner, Bernann McKinney, had preserved a piece of the animal's ear tissue for more than a year in a US laboratory.
"It seems that she has a disability and her dog helped her cope with the problem, so she was eager to get a clone of Booger," he said.
Ms McKinney, who lives in California, is said to be especially attached to her pet because it saved her life when another dog attacked her and bit off her arm.
The cloning will be done by a team at Seoul National University led by Professor Lee Byeong-chun, a key member of the group headed by disgraced stem-cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk. RNL will handle marketing.
Most of Prof Hwang's purported breakthroughs in cloning human stem-cells were found to be fake, but the team later successfully created the world's first dog clone, an Afghan hound named Snuppy. Prof Lee has also cloned a wolf.
Professor Susan Rhind, director of veterinary teaching at Edinburgh University's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, said she would advise pet owners not to consider cloning their animals.
"All sorts of abnormalities can occur and you are not going to get the same animal with the same temperament and the same features," she said.
"It's certainly not the same thing – not an identical twin or a non-identical twin.
"I'm sympathetic with people who psychologically are so attached to their pets, but I wouldn't say that cloning is the solution."
Dr Helen Wallace, of Genewatch UK, said: "We're opposed to the cloning of animals for pets as it involves considerable suffering for the animals involved.
"Normally it takes a number of unsuccessful attempts before one embryo survives and is healthy, and the mother of the dogs and the embryos will suffer in the process."
Pet cloning was initiated in the US when a woman paid £25,000 for a cat to be cloned.
The full article contains 541 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
