This time a pet pooch has been cloned in China
Wednesday, December 19, 2018 IST
BEIJING: Juice is a one-foot tall canine wonder who has starred in dozens of Chinese film and television productions. As he gets older and his illustrious career peaks, his Beijing-based master has one wish for the mutt - to live on. Maybe forever.
A mongrel stray adopted off the streets, the nine-year-old Juice - or "Guozhi" in Mandarin - is unable to reproduce since he was neutered from an early age. But his master, animal trainer He Jun, wants to continue his star pooch's image by making a genetic clone. "Juice himself is a piece of intellectual property with social influence," said He.
To achieve that, He went to Sinogene, China's first biotech company to provide pet cloning services. Sinogene made headlines when it successfully cloned a geneedited beagle in May last year. A month later, it launched commercial cloning services. For at least 380,000 yuan ($55,065), pet owners can clone their pets.
Sinogene's CEO Mi Jidong said the company's pet cloning business is in its initial stages, but he plans to expand services to eventually include gene editing.
In Juice's case, skin samples were collected from the dog's lower abdomen and within weeks, Sinogene was able to isolate his DNA and fertilise an egg. The fertilised egg is then surgically inserted into the uterus of a surrogate mother dog - in this case a beagle. Juice's copy, "Little Juice" - or "Zhizhi" in Chinese -was born in mid-September and stayed with its surrogate mother in Sinogene's lab for about a month. The puppy was later given to He at a small ceremony at which the original Juice was present. While He has not committed Little Juice to show business just yet, he sees lots of potential.
Related Topics
Trending News & Articles
ALMATY: Hour upon hour, day upon day, Omir Bekali and other detainees in far western China's new indoctrination camps had to disavow the...
Recently posted . 211K views . 1 min read
If you have payed attention to the belly buttons of people on the beach or the members of your family, you have probably noticed that they have different shapes and...
Recently posted . 10K views . 2 min read
The Langya henipavirus has a place with a similar group of infections, including Nipah, which is known to kill up to 3/4 of people in extreme cases.
Recently posted . 5K views . 1 min read
Queen's death: The eldest of her four children, Charles, Prince of Wales, who at 73 was the oldest heir apparent in British history, became king immediately...
Recently posted . 5K views . 1 min read
More in Global
The communist-era jets, which include MiG-19, MiG-17 and MiG-21 models among others, have been out of commission for well over a decade.
Recently posted. 1K views . 1 min read
HIGHLIGHTS
• The new law aims at plugging a taxation gap that has seen some...
Recently posted. 917 views . 2 min read
Check out some promises which can be made today.
During the love-filled Valentine Week which begins from February 7 and lasts...
Recently posted. 976 views . 2 min read
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 989 views
Recently posted . 2K views
Recently posted . 2K views
Recently posted . 3K views . 140 min read
Recently posted . 3K views . 67 min read
WASHINGTON: French fries, white bread and Pringles might sound scrumptious but the combination turned out to be something else for a teenager.
...
Recently posted. 735 views . 1 min read
Loneliness isn’t actually a surprising by-product of widowhood. In fact, there is a deep silence, which often comes with losing a spouse. Even if you are stan...
Recently posted. 886 views . 2 min read