S. Korean firm: We delivered commercially cloned dog

The Hindu - Indian Newspapers in English Language from eight editions.

S. Korean firm: We delivered commercially cloned dog

Seoul(AP) _ Booger is back.

An American woman received five puppies on Tuesday that were cloned from her beloved late pit bull, becoming the inaugural customer of a South Korean company that says it is the world's first successful commercial canine cloning service.

Seoul-based RNL Bio said the clones of Bernann McKinney's dog Booger were born last week after being cloned in cooperation with a team of Seoul National University scientists who created in 2005 the world's first cloned dog _ a male Afghan hound named Snuppy.

``It's a miracle!'' McKinney repeatedly shouted when she saw the cloned Boogers at a Seoul National University laboratory.

``Yes, I know you! You know me, too!'' she said, hugging the tiny black puppies, which were sleeping with one of their two surrogate mothers, both Korean mixed breed dogs.

The team of scientists is headed by Lee Byeong-chun, a former colleague of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who scandalized the international scientific community when his purported breakthroughs in cloned stem cells were revealed as fake in 2005.

Independent tests confirmed the 2005 dog cloning was genuine, and Lee's team has since cloned some 30 dogs and five wolves.

RNL Bio said in a statement that its cloning of Booger was the first successful commercial cloning of a canine, adding it will offer the service to customers worldwide.

McKinney contacted Lee after Booger died of cancer in April 2006. She had earlier asked U.S.-based Genetics Savings and Clone to clone her dog but the company shut down due to lack of demand in late 2006 after only producing a handful of cloned cats and failing to produce any dog clones.

The Korean scientists brought the dog's frozen cells to Seoul in March and nurtured them before launching formal cloning work in late May, according to RNL Bio.

Lee's team have identified the puppies as Booger's genuine clones, and his university's forensic medicine team is currently conducting reconfirmation tests.

``The cells' status was indeed bad as they had been stored for a long time, so we cautiously approached the work,'' Lee told The Associated Press in a phone interview. ``But the scientific technology has also developed compared with when we cloned Snuppy. There is no room for any doubt over whether they are real clones.''

He said the five clones _ which share identical white spots below their necks _ were all healthy though their weight varies slightly.

Lee's team is currently locked in patent disputes with Hwang, who is now focusing on dog cloning in partnership with U.S.-based BioArts International. RNL Bio head Ra Jeong-chan said his firm will soon take legal action, saying Seoul National University holds the patent for dog cloning.

McKinney, 57, a screenwriter who taught drama at U.S. universities, said she was especially attached to Booger because he saved her life when she was attacked by another dog three times his size. The incident resulted in her left hand being amputated, and injured her leg nerves and stomach. Doctors later reconstructed her hand and she spent part of her recovery in a wheelchair.

She said she will name the clones ``Booger McKinney,'' ``Booger Lee,'' ``Booger Ra,'' ``Booger Hong and ``Booger Park,'' using her family name and those of the South Korean scientists who achieved the cloning.

``For the rest of my life, I will love them and consider them my Korean brothers,'' said McKinney, who lives with five other dogs and three horses in her California home.

RNL Bio charges up to US$150,000 for dog cloning but will only receive US$50,000 from McKinney because she is the first customer and helped with publicity, said company head Ra.

Ra said his firm eventually aims to clone about 300 dogs per year and is also interested in duplicating camels for customers in the Middle East.