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Business English: American pays $50,000 to clone dead dog

The prospect of having nine lives is no longer the preserve of cats. In a happy mix of science and commerce, man's best friend can now live again and again - if the owner is besotted and rich enough. von Anna Fifield (Seoul)

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American pays $ 50.000 to clone dead dog

The prospect of having nine lives is no longer the preserve of cats. In a happy mix of science and commerce, man's best friend can now live again and again - if the owner is besotted and rich enough.

The South Korean stem cells scientists who produced Snuppy, a cloned Afghan hound, have received the world's first commercial order to clone a dog and are preparing to recreate Booger, a pitbull terrier from California. It is an order they hope will lead to the production of as many as 500 born-again pets each year.

"We received an order from an American woman to clone her dog, Booger," said Ra Jeong-Chan, chief executive of RNL Bio, the Korean company that will help Seoul National University stem cell scientists create Booger II. "She is disabled and has trouble walking, so Booger was a big help to her and she wants him back."

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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