A puppy cloned from the DNA of a dog who'd been dead for a span of two weeks was welcomed into the world this week, being called a "miracle" by his owners.The puppy, born by cesarean section on Saturday from a surrogate who had carried him, is a clone of a beloved boxer named Dylan, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack last June. The clone was done at Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in Korea, the only laboratory in the world that will perform such an operation. The DNA was harvested from Dylan's muscle tissue.
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The Guardian published a footage of the puppy's first moments, as it gets cleaned off in an incubation chamber just after birth.The dog's owners, Laura Jacques and Richard Remde of the United Kingdom, had live-tweeted the new puppy's birth, posting updates to a Twitter account throughout.
A second clone is expected to be born in coming days, as well. The puppy (like pretty much all puppies) is incredibly cute, and so far appears healthy.
Correction: This article initially stated that Dylan was the first puppy to be cloned from the DNA of a dead dog. He is not. In fact, the puppy is the first to be cloned from the DNA of a dog that had been dead for a significant amount of time—after two weeks. It becomes exponentially more difficult to clone an animal five days after it dies.