Bernann McKinney wanted a clone of her lost pet so she turned to a Seoul biotech firm. McKinney paid $50,000 for clones of her lost pit bull. The Seoul company is claiming this is the first commercial pet cloning service. It sounds similar to the fictional RePet service from the science fiction movie The 6th Day that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. The BBC reports that embryos were created from skin cells taken from Booger's ear tissue.
"Booger was my partner and my friend," Ms McKinney said, as she appeared with the five identical copies of her pet.
Scientists at Seoul National University created a number of embryos from preserved skin cells taken from Booger's ear tissue before he died.
The embryos were then implanted into two surrogate mother dogs and, three months later, the puppies were born.
Among the scientists involved in the project was Professor Lee Byeong-chun, who was part of the team that created the world's first cloned dog - Snuppy the Afghan hound - in 2005.
Here's a video about the cloned dogs from the AP. Ms. McKinney seems very pleased with the results.
