Canine Crazy
First it was pet cemeteries, now this American woman wants her dog cloned.
Seoul-based RNL Bio said it is already working on its first order from an American woman who wants a clone of her dead pit bull. She was especially attached to it because it saved her life when another dog attacked her and bit off her arm.
The client, Bernann McKunney of California, provided the firm with ear tissue from the dead dog, which she had taken and preserved at a US biotech firm before the dog died a year and a half ago, said company spokeswoman Kim Yoon.
The chances of successfully creating a clone are about 25 percent, Kim said. The firm is charging US$150,000 for the clones, which clients pay only after they receive a new pet.
Cloning work will be done by a team of Seoul National University scientists led by professor Lee Byeong-chun, a key member of disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk's research team, Kim said. The company will handle marketing.
Most of Hwang's purported breakthroughs in cloning human stem cells were found to be fake. But the team was found to have successfully created the world's first dog clone, an Afghan hound named "Snuppy."
Caveat emptor!
I'm reminded of a story in an episode of This American Life, "If by Chance We Meet Again", where a man cloned his pet bull, Chance.
To spoil a great story, that well-behaved, adorable bull had been a cantankerous calf, but the man hadn't known that small fact before he bought Chance years later. Second Chance, the cloned version, commenced to wreck everything, and then gored the man. In a touching finale, the man, resting in the hospital with holes in him, rhapsodized about love and commitment.
Cave canem, Mrs. McKunney!
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