American superstar Barbara Streisand's heavy-handed clone of her dog sparked controversy

Barbara Streisand is holding her dog Sammie. Last year, after Sammie's death, the singer-and-shadow superstar had two cloned dogs.

Photo by kmazur, wireimage/getty

Barbara Streisand's cloned dog has become a big hit lately, but in fact, for more than a decade, it's nothing new for high-paying people.

Written by: Sarah Gibbens

In the career of singing and filming superstar Barbara Streisand, she rarely retreated to the second place. Last year, after the death of her dog, the 14-year-old cotton-veiled dog Samantha, she made the decision to clone Samantha.

In an interview with Variety magazine, Streisand told us that samantha's tissue extracted from the mouth and stomach cloned two puppies: Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet.

"Variety" quotes the stage icon and Oscar winner: "These two little guys have different personalities... I was waiting for them to grow up and see who would be like Samantha, with brown eyes and a serious personality. ”

Streisand didn't say much about why they wanted to clone their dogs and where they did, but with $100,000 in hand, any owner can realize the dream of cloning a pet. High-paying people can choose companies such as Sooam Biotech in South Korea and Viagen in Texas, but whether they should clone their dogs is debatable.

The birth of a cloned dog

Making a cloned dog requires a lot of dog help.

John Woestendiek, who has written a book on canine cloning, explains the cloning process in an interview with Scientific American:

"In addition to tissue samples of dogs to be cloned, making clones also requires retrieving eggs from female dogs in heat, in the number of more than a dozen. Electrofusion is then performed to produce nuclear transfer embryos and divide their cells. Finally, it is moved into the womb of the surrogate female dog and waits for the female dog to give birth successfully. ”

In the process, the nucleus in the egg is removed and replaced with the nucleus of the person to be cloned.

On the websites of both soam biotech and viagen, it is explicitly stated that live births are used to make clones. From the time the embryo is transferred to the birth of the dog, it takes about 60 days, and sometimes a caesarean section is performed.

How similar are clones to ontology?

Cloned animals have exactly the same genes as ontology, but there are subtle differences in gene expression. For example, the spots on their bodies or the color of their eyes will be different.

It's no surprise that Streisand's cloned dog behaves differently from her original dog. Dogs' personalities are influenced by the circumstances in which they were born, so it is unlikely that exactly the same dog will be replicated in the lab.

Are clones healthy?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been monitoring cloned animals such as sheep and goats, and according to the website, they are generally healthy. But dogs reproduce in a slightly more complex way, which makes them difficult to clone.

When cloning dogs for the first time, scientists feared that clones would age faster than naturally born dogs. But for the most part, the health status of the two is the same.

In 2005, the first cloned dog, Snuppy, was born. This is an Afghan hound, born in South Korea.

Snuppy lived about 10 years before eventually dying of cancer, while the average lifespan of an Afghan hound was 11 years.

In 2015, the scientists took it a step further and cloned 3 puppies with snuppy. The paper on the study, published in the journal Nature, in which scientists claim that the dogs appear healthy and normal, and that they will continue to observe them for years to come.

Clone dogs, controversial

Unlike animals in agriculture, pet cloning is largely unregulated. In 2005, California tried to pass a bill banning pet cloning. Officials have cited health concerns and concerns: If pet owners switch to cloning technology instead of going to animal shelters for adoption, animal management agencies may struggle to get their work done. But the bill was ultimately rejected.

With no regulation, it's hard to know how many cloned dogs are born each year. Some animal interest groups have raised objections, such as the Animal Protection Society.

Vicki Katrinak, the association's project manager for animal research issues, said: "Given animal welfare concerns, the American Society for the Protection of Animals opposes the cloning of any kind of animal for commercial purposes. Companies that offer pet cloning services mistakenly promise pet owners that they will get replicas of their beloved pets and take advantage of these grief-stricken owners. There are countless cats, dogs and dogs around the world who are eager to get a warm home, and pet cloning is completely unnecessary. ”

The regulatory measures proposed by the EU also focus only on food.

As of this publication, we have not been able to contact Sooam Biotech, which declined to comment.