Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady stated Tuesday that his canine, Junie, is a clone of his household’s late pet Lua, created by Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based biotechnology firm that Brady has invested in.
The Birmingham Metropolis co-owner revealed the information in an announcement launched by means of Colossal, which additionally introduced its acquisition of one other cloning firm, Viagen Pets and Equine. The 2 companies plan to mix their applied sciences to increase cloning companies for pet house owners and conservation tasks.
“I really like my animals. They imply the world to me and my household,” Brady stated. “Just a few years in the past, I labored with Colossal and leveraged their non-invasive cloning expertise by means of a easy blood draw of our household’s aged canine earlier than she handed.”
Lua, a pit bull combine adopted by Brady and his former spouse, Gisele Bündchen, died in December 2023. The pattern used to create Junie was collected earlier than Lua’s demise, in line with Colossal.
Brady stated the corporate “gave my household a second probability with a clone of our beloved canine” and added that he’s “excited how Colossal and Viagen’s tech collectively may help each households dropping their beloved pets whereas serving to to avoid wasting endangered species”.
Viagen, now owned by Colossal, has beforehand cloned pets for celebrities together with Barbra Streisand and Paris Hilton. The corporate holds expertise licenses from the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh, which cloned Dolly the Sheep in 1996.
Colossal, based in 2021, has drawn consideration for its “de-extinction” analysis, together with tasks aimed toward reviving species such because the woolly mammoth and dodo hen. The corporate lately claimed to have produced three cloned dire wolf pups, a declare that has been disputed by conservation teams.
Monetary particulars of Colossal’s acquisition of Viagen weren’t disclosed. Cloning a canine by means of Viagen usually prices between $50,000 and $85,000.
Canine cloning has often surfaced in mainstream popular culture, together with an episode of Nathan Fielder’s HBO sequence The Rehearsal, which explored the ethics of replicating a beloved pet.
Brady, a seven-time Tremendous Bowl champion and present Fox Sports activities broadcaster, stated his household considers Junie “not a scientific experiment, however a part of our household”.
