Meet Lancey, the first commercially cloned dog, delivered to Edgar and Nina Otto on Monday. The Ottos bid and won an auction to receive a genetic duplicate of their beloved Labrador named Sir Lancelot, who died in January of 2008. They stored the donor dog's DNA, and from that, his identical twin, created by BioArts International (no, it's not called RePet, The 6th Day fans), was born November 18th.
"Sir Lancelot was the most human of any dog we've ever had," said Nina Otto. "He was a prince among dogs. We can't believe this day is finally here," she said. "We are so happy to have little Lancey in our family. His predecessor was a very special dog. We are thrilled beyond words!"
Dogs are notoriously difficult to clone (the first dog ever cloned was born in 2005), not only because of their infrequent and unpredictable ovulation, opaque ova, and poorly understood physiology, but also because of man's-best-friend ethics rules that are much more stringent than those for livestock such as sheep and cattle. Want a clone of your dog? There's one more spot available, but get ready to pony up $180,000. How much for a human?
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