S.Korean bio firm says dog cloning to be cheaper

Ra said stem cells from fat tissue are far easier to reprogram and there is about a 20 percent chance a manipulated cell will result in a clone, an improvement over the previous method where the success rate was in the single digits.

South Korea's Customs Service said it paid about 60 million won ($43,840) to clone sniffer dogs with RNL, which is affiliated with Seoul National University (SNU) and cloned the dogs at a reduced cost for the government.

The SNU lab was once led by disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who is now standing trial on charges of fraud and embezzlement. Hwang now has his own lab called Sooam Biotech Research Foundation that also clones dogs commercially.

(Additional reporting by Shin Ae-lin; Editing by Sugita Katyal)