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In 1997, Lou Hawthorne set out to clone his mother鈥檚 dog, Missy. Thanks to the skills of South Korea鈥檚 disgraced cloning expert Woo Suk Hwang, he now shares a home with three genetically identical 鈥楳issys鈥� and has just closed an auction offering five people the opportunity to have their dogs cloned. Peter Aldhous met this unconventional entrepreneur

How did Missyplicity 鈥� the project to clone your mother鈥檚 dog Missy 鈥� come about?

It was over breakfast in San Francisco. We probably should have laid off the caffeine. Dolly the sheep had just been cloned. There was my mother, my sister, myself and a family friend, , who made his fortune in adult education. He paid for the first round of Missyplicity. Otherwise it would have just been a crazy discussion.

Still, few people would entertain the idea of cloning their pet, even if they had the money.

There was something special about Missy. It is a spark that lives within the dogs we cloned from her 鈥� Mira and her sisters. She was very smart. My family appreciates intelligence, but also strong will. Missy fitted right in.

Tell us about the initial attempts to clone Missy at Texas A&M University.

They were the ones who broke it down into the three key aspects, which are obtaining quality ova, embryo production and embryo transfer. With their help, I came to understand that the first and last are the hardest. They did produce a stillbirth, which was not widely reported. We felt at the time 鈥� it was around 2000 鈥� that it was the penultimate stage before success. But it turned out to be the only definite pregnancy they ever produced.

Why did it prove so difficult?

I think because the quantity of animals was too low. They never had more than 80 dogs at a time. When the Koreans finally succeeded, they had about 5000 dogs.

But in 2002 the Texans did produce Cc, the first cloned cat.

That was a disaster! We had the dubious distinction of having produced the world鈥檚 first clone that did not resemble its genetic donor. It created an enduring argument that clones will often not resemble their donors even physically 鈥� which is false.

Why didn鈥檛 Cc resemble her genetic donor?

Cc鈥檚 genetic donor was a female calico [tortoiseshell] cat. These cats have two different cell types for hair colour, in which . If you clone from one cell type, it will give a black-and-white cat. If you clone from the other cell type, you鈥檒l get an orange-and-white cat. There is no cell that will give you an accurate facsimile of the original. But I鈥檓 not aware of this issue in other breeds of cat, and I鈥檓 not aware of it in dogs, period.

So does Mira, the clone now lying on my feet, resemble Missy?

Missy was this age when we got her. And this is what she looked like.

You decided to continue the cloning project with your company, Genetic Savings and Clone, but this closed down. Why?

By 2006, money was tight. John Sperling had to make some very hard choices. We had cloned seven cats, four for paying clients. It was reported that we closed due to lack of interest. In fact, I was signing refund cheques to clients who had paid $32,000 up front. It was not lack of demand. But we were losing money with every order.

After nearly 10 years, you still hadn鈥檛 cloned a dog. Did you consider giving up?

I like difficult problems, and this is a really difficult problem. And I鈥檓 very happy that the Koreans solved it.

鈥淚 like difficult problems, and this is a really difficult problem鈥�

The Korean researchers cloned the first dog in 2005, before you shut down.

We had proven that it could be done, with the stillbirth. We had shown what the biggest hurdles were. But that wouldn鈥檛 have been enough for most teams in the world. Dr Hwang is one of the most disciplined scientists I have ever met. Last summer, I watched his team retrieve 33 perfect ova and they made 32 embryos. That was about how many we had throughout our whole project. Dr Hwang did that in one day.

Hwang has been very much involved in your comeback. Tell us about that.

I raised money for a new company called BioArts International 鈥� currently we are building facilities in China 鈥� then I thought, what can we do in the short term? One of our scientists, Taeyoung Shin, who got his PhD under Dr Hwang, said: 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 we go and talk to him?鈥�

Hwang鈥檚 team cloned Missy, and will clone dogs for the winners of your auction. How do you justify working with a notorious fraudster who faked his results on human stem cells?

I wouldn鈥檛 dream of excusing what he did in the past. But for our customers, it makes sense to work with the best in the field of dog cloning.

Have you talked to Hwang about his downfall?

He鈥檚 devastated, and extremely contrite. He knows he is going to spend the rest of his life being doubted, but he is going to put up with that because he wants to do science. He鈥檚 got money behind him, and a lab at the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, south of Seoul.

Are you convinced his contrition is genuine?

This comes down to one鈥檚 belief in redemption. When I realised that he was the best person to partner with, I thought: 鈥淕oddam it, now I have a solution, and it involves the pariah of modern science!鈥� But he hasn鈥檛 lied to me, to my knowledge. If he was a habitual liar now, I would probably have come across that in my due diligence.

How will you convince customers that the dog clones aren鈥檛 fakes?

We鈥檝e set up systems for verifying everything. Missy鈥檚 DNA was sent to the veterinary genetics lab at the University of California at Davis. Then we took all three of the clones up there. They have the same markers as Missy for nuclear DNA, but divergent mitochondrial DNA, which proves they are clones.

How did the auction go?

We sold the first three for $170,000, $155,000 and $140,000. Several customers were slightly uncomfortable with the auction format, so we鈥檙e going to negotiate with them. We鈥檙e confident that we will sell the other two.

People won鈥檛 get the same animal, so is a misleading title for the auction?

We don鈥檛 say 鈥淏est Friends Forever鈥�, as if we keep the same pet alive. The word 鈥渁gain鈥� is carefully chosen, because it is a new creature. The friendship can happen again as there鈥檚 an aesthetic and behavioural connection.

Your website says that you 鈥渕ay or may not鈥� clone more pets after the auction. What are your plans?

I鈥檓 not going to over-commit this time. If this venture is not profitable, I鈥檓 going to be quite comfortable with walking away 鈥� especially because we have already cloned Missy.