Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
Video Credit: AsiaWire
This footage – seen over seven million times – shows the final days of a poorly golden retriever who died of cancer but is being cloned to the tune of 41,000 GBP.
Li Xiaoling, 23, from the city of Taiyuan in China’s northern province of Shanxi, has turned to Beijing-based cloning company Sinogene, which has promised to create a copy of her beloved pooch Hu Hu.
Ms Li’s female goldie died of cancer at the tender age of eight on 27th November, when two vials of the dog’s somatic cells were also extracted from its thigh for the cloning process.
The young dog owner said cloning was her last resort, after she spent 80 days and more than 100,000 RMB (11,000 GBP) trying to rid the loyal dog of her ovarian cancer.
When all else failed, she decided to cough up a further 380,000 RMB (41,800 GBP) to have Hu Hu cloned by Sinogene.
Video Credit: AsiaWire
Ms Li told local media: “I was so loyal to this dog.
“We got it when I was about 15 years old and still in secondary school.
“I was very attached because she was my companion and gave me so much comfort in my life.
“So although it’s expensive, she’s worth it.
“I’m using my own money and haven’t asked a single penny from my parents.
“No one has the right to interfere and tell me what I can or cannot do with my own money.”
Ms Li said the cells extracted from Hu Hu’s thigh will take about a week to be duplicated, after which cloned embryos will be implanted into surrogate mother dogs.
Sinogene charges 250,000 RMB (27,500 GBP) per clone cat and 580,000 RMB (63,700 GBP) per horse.
Somatic cells extracted from would-be cloned cats or dogs can be kept for a price of 4,000 RMB (440 GBP) per year, or 19,000 RMB (2,000 GBP) for up to 10 years.
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