SEOUL, South Korea — Bernann McKinney says her beloved pit bull, Booger, saved her life when another dog attacked her, then learned to push her wheelchair while she recovered from a severe hand injury and nerve damage.
Booger died in 2006, but now he's back — at least in clone form, after the birth last week of puppies replicated by a South Korean company.
"Yes, I know you! You know me, too!" McKinney cried joyfully Tuesday, hugging the puppy clones as they slept with one of their two surrogate mothers, both Korean mixed-breed dogs, in a Seoul laboratory. "It's a miracle."
The five clones were created by Seoul-based RNL Bio in cooperation with a team of Seoul National University scientists who in 2005 created the world's first cloned dog, a male Afghan hound named Snuppy.
It is headed by Lee Byeong-chun, a former colleague of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose purported breakthroughs in stem-cell research were revealed as fake. Independent tests, however, proved the team's dog cloning was genuine.
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Lee's team has since cloned about 30 dogs and five wolves, but it says Booger's clones, for which McKinney paid $50,000, represent the first successful commercial cloning of a canine.
The procedure, which costs up to $150,000, is drawing criticism from animal-rights groups that oppose cloning pets. They say it can lead to malformed offspring and exploitation of surrogates and egg donors, as well as unfounded claims that the new animal is an exact copy of the original.
"It's fraught with animal-welfare concerns, and it does not bring back a loved one," said Martin Stephens, vice president for animal research issues at the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington, D.C.
"A dead animal's DNA does not guarantee the offspring will be identical to the deceased. It takes more than just genes to create an animal," said Stephens, who is a biologist.
He said the cloning process also subjects hundreds of dogs and cats to invasive procedures as egg donors and surrogates. According to a report released by the Humane Society in May, 3,656 cloned embryos, 319 egg donors and 214 surrogates were used to produce just five cloned dogs and 11 cloned cats that were able to survive 30 days past birth.
Millions of homeless dogs and cats are in the United States, Stephens said, and "we don't need new sources to compete with animal shelters and reputable breeders."
McKinney, 57, a screenwriter who taught drama at U.S. universities, contacted Lee after her dog died of cancer in April 2006.
"There is no room for any doubt over whether they are real clones," said Lee, whose team has identified the puppies as Booger's genuine clones. His university's forensic medicine team is currently conducting reconfirmation tests.
on the net
RNL Bio: rnl.co.kr/eng/main.asp
