South Korea Company Will Clone Pet Dogs For $100,000
Sooam Biotech, a South Korean company that specializes in biological research, is offering customers the chance to clone their pet dogs for a staggering $100,000. The company first began to clone dogs in 2006 following successful experiments and now create exact replicas of beloved pets on a regular basis for people all around the world.
As well as the large sum of money needed, those who want to clone their pet will have to save some of the animal’s skin cells. Sooam Biotech then extracts the DNA from these cells and inserts them into a donor egg that has had its nucleus removed, which ensures that the egg will only include the DNA of the dog being cloned. They then insert this egg into a surrogate female dog so that it can grow in the womb before being born.
The practice has come in for criticism however. Many believe that the money being spent would be better spent on dog shelters or on animal welfare charities, while others argue that the treatment of the dogs involved is inhumane. This is mainly down to the fact that it usually takes multiple attempts before a clone is perfected and many of the failures die soon after birth.
