A newly established Korean biotech firm promises to clone anyone's dead pets. Among the employees of the firm RNL Bio is Dr. Lee Byeong-chun . The company plans to charge as much as $150,000 for the procedure.

The team of Dr. Lee has already successfully cloned a dog in 2005, and this success is the company's guarantee to customers. They already have an American client, Bernann McKunney, who wished to have her pit bull cloned. Prior to the pet's death, an American biotech firm gathered cell samples from the pit bull's ear for preservation.

The cloning activity will be done in South Korea and will use the equipment, expertise and experience of the pioneering team in animal cloning. Dr. Lee was part of the team of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, who was charged with faking his cloning research. RNL Bio hopes to find a sizable market in trained dogs, especially those in law enforcement and security.

Cloning used to require that the donors of the cells be alive because of the stringent requirements imposed on donors. But since there has been great progress in cell storage, even a pet that has died can be cloned as long as viable cells were taken from the pet while it was still alive. The scenario of a 'Jurassic Park'-like cloning where cells from dead organisms were used, is still something of a remote possibility. This is owing to the denaturation of proteins and the natural degradation of genes over time which increases the chances of breaks in the genetic code.

<em>Reference:www.guardian.co.uk </em>