British Couple Spends $100K to Clone Cancer-Stricken Dog

SEOUL— -- A British couple has succeeded in cloning two puppies through a South Korean biotech firm from DNA samples retrieved 12 days after their beloved boxer died.

Laura Jacques, 29, and Richard Remde, 43, of West Yorkshire, England, paid $100,000 to the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, which offers commercial dog cloning. Their 8-year-old boxer, Dylan, had died of a brain tumor in June.

“The biggest challenge was finding a refrigerator big enough to immediately store his dead body,” Jacques said, beaming with joy.

Clients are advised to refrigerate but not freeze the bodies in order to retrieve the best DNA samples, according to Sooam Biotech’s website.

Remde, a home builder, personally flew to Seoul twice to deliver the DNA samples that were implanted into dog eggs that have had the nucleus removed. A series of electric shocks were given to trigger cell division, then implanted into surrogate mother dogs last October. The laboratory has cloned 700 dogs with a 40 percent pregnancy rate, the world’s highest, it says.

“This is surreal,” said Jacques, a professional dog walker who witnessed the first birth led by Hwang Woo-Suk, a controversial scientist and former professor at Seoul National University who had falsely claimed to clone a human embryo in a test tube.

That puppy was born with the identical features of Dylan: white patches on the left side of the nose, on the chest and on one of the paws.

“Clones will be genetically identical but personality could be different based on rearing environment,” explained David Kim, a researcher at Sooam Biotech. “Basically, it’s nature versus nurture.”

The male puppy boxer born on Boxing Day – Saturday -- has been named Chance and the second cloned puppy born Sunday has been named Shadow, after the protagonist in Jacques’ favorite film, “Homeward Bound.”