The price for cloning a dog is set to be $150,000, but because this is the first order, and because the woman agreed to allow the event to be
publicised, she is only being charged $50,000.
An SNU team of scientists produced the world's first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005 but the achievement was overshadowed by the sensational
revelation that Hwang Woo-suk, the leader of the team,
falsified research suggesting he had created the first human stem cells. However, the subsequent investigation into the production of Snuppy found that the dog was a genuine clone.
Scientists are preparing to send cells from Booger to Korea, where they will be placed into
surrogate mother dogs, meaning Booger II may breathe again in October.
Mr Ra said he expected his company to receive orders for specialist dogs such as drug and bomb sniffer dogs, but added that they will be increasing capacity in the hope they can clone 100 "
companion dogs" from next year, and eventually 500 dogs annually.
Mr Hwang's former colleague, Lee Byeong-chun, who remains at SNU but has since admitted to some mistakes in cloning research papers, will provide the technology to copy Booger. Asked about SNU's past scientific scandals, Mr Lee said: "I don't care about that."
But Mr Ra suggested that the move to commercial cloning could help clear up any remaining doubts about Korean science. "I think we need another two years to overcome all the problems," Mr Ra said.
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