Company Will Clone Dogs for Top Bidders By MARCUS WOHLSEN,AP SAN FRANCISCO (May 21) - A Northern California biotech company announced Wednesday that it will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions. Some ethicists condemned the offer, fearing it could lead to human clones. Opening bids start at $100,000 for the service being offered by Mill Valley-based BioArts International. The cloning process is to be performed by a South Korean scientist who suffered international disgrace after being found to have faked research. BioArts chief executive Lou Hawthorne formerly ran Genetic Savings & Clone, which offered to clone pet cats for $50,000 but folded in 2006 because few were willing to pay so much. But Hawthorne said in a phone interview that another service his old company provided - the storage of pet DNA for future possible clones - showed him the market for dog clones was strong. "The average dog owner has a different relationship with his dog than the average cat owner," Hawthorne said. "The level of intensity on the dog side just dwarfed what we saw on the cat side." To conduct the clonings, BioArts has partnered with a South Korean research team that recently created three clones of Hawthorne's family dog, Missy, who died in 2002. The team was led by Hwang Woo-suk, who scandalized the international scientific community in 2005 when his breakthrough human cloning research involving embryonic stem cells was found to have been faked. Tests performed at the University of California, Davis' Veterinary Genetics Laboratory found that DNA samples taken from Missy and the three other dogs appeared to belong to the same individual. Hawthorne said that after spending 15 years with Missy, he is taking pleasure in seeing her mischievous streak coming out in her clones. They also like steamed broccoli just like she did, he said. Some groups that monitor advances in genetic technology argue that the company's project, called Best Friends Again, could serve as a gateway to more unsavory practices. "Many people consider pets to be part of our families," Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Oakland-based Center for Genetics and Society, said in a statement. "If we get used to cute cloned puppies, will some people expect cute cloned babies next?" Critics also have lambasted the project for its association with Hwang. Earlier this month, a researcher close to Hwang told The Associated Press that the scientist, who went into seclusion after the deception was exposed, had established a pet-cloning company in Seoul. Hawthorne said he was wary of working with Hwang at first but said the Korean scientist had assembled the best technology and talent available. All of Hwang's results connected to dog cloning have been independently verified, Hawthorne said. BioArts said in a statement it has been granted the sole license for cloning dogs, cats and endangered species using patented processes developed for the cloning of Dolly the sheep, the first successfully cloned animal. Groups critical of the dog-cloning effort also say the process is cruel, arguing that hundreds of failures are typical before one mammal is successfully cloned. But BioArts found that dogs are much less likely to miscarry or give birth to malformed offspring during the cloning process than other animals, Hawthorne said. "If everything isn't perfect, it doesn't work at all," he said. "With other species, their reproductive systems are more tolerant of error." The auctions are scheduled to begin June 18. Well this would go against moral values, but after continued thoughts of cloning, i don't really think it's something we should do. Guess it's pretty much against my moral values also to play "god".
There's always going to be for and against for cloning. To me, cloning is okay for medical purposes or research, but cloning dogs just for people's enjoyment is a bit too unethical to me
if they got down the cloning to be 100% perfect it would be huge ...... but then morals will have to be addressed =\
i am not religious but i know what those religious people would say first thing "ACTING GOD " lols they need some naruto skills XD clone technique thing haha
i'm definitely not religious, this is more of a philosophical perspective. But think about it, if you clone humans, and the clone later finds out that his/her only purpose in life is a copy of someone, they are not "real" that would suck. Also the clone might have shorter lifespan and also some defective abnormalities that results from the cloning process.
I don't like the idea of cloning dogs for people's enjoyment. However, I read about these dogs which can smell that you have cancer growing inside you, and that they are planning to clone them in Japan for further research on them. I have no problem with that kind of cloning
hmm... i dont know if this is right or not to clone dogs for like peoples enjoyment... i mean i understand if someone lost a dog that they really loved... but would it feel the same even if the dog was at 100% perfection?
