A biotechnology company based in north California declared on Wednesday 21 May that it will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in an auction conducted online. The offer has been criticized by some ethicists who worry that this could next lead to human clones. The BioArts International which is based in the Mill Valley will start the bid from $100,000 for the dog cloning service.

 

It is one infamous South Korean scientist found to have conducted fake research, who has been roped in by the firm to conduct the dog cloning. The chief executive of Bio Arts, Lou Hawthorne earlier operated a company called Genetic Savings & Clone which offered to clone pet cats for $ 50,000. The company shut down in 2006 as not many were keen on shelling out so much for the service.

 

Lou Hawthorne explained over the telephone that his former company also offered another service, that of the storage of pet DNA for future possible clones, which indicated that the demand for dog cloning was robust. Hawthorne said that the level of intensity on the dog side just dwarfed what they saw on the cat side. For its new project, BioArts has collaborated with a South Korean research team that recently cloned Missy, the dog of the Hawthorne's family that died in 2002.