California couple successfully clones dog for $50,000
Escondido, California couple Alicia and David Tschirhart cloned their beloved dog Marley when they knew he was going to pass away
The Tschirharts say Marley, a Labrador, was the perfect dog
They think that Marley’s clone, Ziggy, bears a remarkable resemblance to Marley
Ziggy reportedly has Marley’s personality, likes the same toys, and plays the same way
The Tschirharts were able to clone Marley with the help of American pet cloning company ViaGen Pets
ViaGen Pets prices their pet cloning service at $50,000, which the Tschirharts had no problem paying
They held Marley in such high regard not only because they loved him, but because he once saved Alicia’s life
While on a hike with Marley and David, Alicia reached for a walking stick on the ground, but Marley began aggressively clawing at the area
Alicia, then four months pregnant at the time, could not understand why Marley was behaving the way he was
Near the walking stick Alicia was reaching for was a venomous rattlesnake, which Marley chased away
Marley was diagnosed with cancer soon after and passed away around five years ago
Now that the Tschirharts have Ziggy, Alicia and David are glad that their children will be able to grow up with at least their own version of Marley
“Dolly the Sheep,” a female Finn Dorset sheep, was the very first mammal cloned from an adult cell
She was produced by the UK’s Roslin Institute in 1996, and her birth was announced in February 1997
Before Dolly, many scientists believed that adult mammals could not be cloned
When her birth made the news, the world began to debate on the impact of the cloning and what it would mean for future mammalian cloning technology
She was cloned from a mammary gland cell taken from an adult Finn Dorset ewe
Using electrical pulses, the team at Roslin fused the mammary cell with an unfertilized egg cell with a removed nucleus
The mammary cell’s nucleus transferred into the egg cell, causing the egg cell to divide
The mammary cell first had to be made to enter a quiescent stage so the egg cell would accept its nucleus
This whole process was soon called the somatic cell nuclear transfer
Reconstructed embryos were then placed in 13 surrogate Scottish Blackface ewes, with only one becoming pregnant
After 148 days, the normal gestation period for sheep, Dolly came to life
Dolly was euthanized on February 14, 2003 because she was suffering from progressive lung disease
Her body now lies in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh
ViaGen cloned Marley the same way the Roslin Institute cloned Dolly
The procedure for cloning pets at ViaGen begins with the scientists obtaining a tissue biopsy from the pet to be cloned
The biopsy is then cultured into new living cells in ViaGen, then these cells are frozen
When the pet’s owner decides to clone their pet, ViaGen then replaces one of the cells’ nuclei with a female’s egg nucleus
The embryo starts growing after the egg and cell are combined, and the embryo is placed in a surrogate mother
According to ViaGen, a clone is more or less an identical twin