The original Jasmine and her clone
RNL Bio, a leading biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of stem cell therapeutics, announced that it successfully cloned a toy breed, Pekingese, for the first time in the world.
A US client has lived with the original dog named Jasmine for 9 years and he wanted to continue his love to the clone even if the original Jasmine is healthy. Pekingese is known as the living symbols of the lion that was Buddha's guardian. They were the exclusive property of the Emperor and Empress of China in 19th century. The first Pekingese was introduced to England in late 19th century. Pekingese was registered by the American Kennel Club in 1906.
The tissue from the original Jasmine was harvested at an animal hospital in Rockville, Maryland and the cells were processed and sent to the firm’s cloning facility located in Seoul, South Korea last November. Cloning procedure went on and the pregnancy was confirmed in mid December, 2008. One clone was born on the first day of February this year. After the cloned puppy grew to be independent of surrogate mum’s milk and was confirmed to be in perfect health, RNL announced the successful cloning on Feb 24 2009.
Dr. Jeong Chan Ra, CEO of the firm said “With our proprietary dog cloning technology, any breed can be cloned and there has been no failure in our cloning history. We foresee that cloning demand for both pets and work dogs will increase in the near future."
The cloning of Pekingese was the world’s first commercial cloning of small breed. The original Jasmine will meet the clone in early April. The firm also accomplished the world first commercial dog cloning in 2008. Recently the firm began to offer free stem cell shot for new banking customers who register the stem cells of their dogs for future cloning or therapeutics purpose.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
