Korean Biotech Firm to Clone a Dog for Client

A Korean biotech firm may be the first in the world to clone a dog for a client.

Biotechnology firm RNL Bio announced yesterday, “A physically disabled woman named Vernon McKernie, living in the U.S. state of California, has asked RNL Bio to clone her dead dog. Along with Animal Cloning and Stem Cell Research Center of Seoul National University’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, we signed an agreement with her.”

The joint research team of RNL Bio and Seoul National University is scheduled to complete its cloning project by February 2009. The research team plans to use another dog as a surrogate mother and make use of the dead dog’s somatic cell preserved by McKernie.

The woman will pay 150,000 dollars (approximately 143 million won) to the research team.

“If our trial succeeds, it will be the world’s first case in which a firm clones a dog for a client,” the research team said.

The dog to be cloned is a pit bull, known to be used in dog fights.

The research team predicts that the cloned dog will have identical genes and look similar to the dead dog. The team added, “Pit bulls have never been cloned in Korea. However, since we have cloned a variety of dogs, there should not be any difficulties.”

sohyung@donga.com