Two of A Kind:China's First pet cloning

Seeing double: Nine-year-old celebrity dog 'Juice' which has starred in various Chinese films looks at its two-month-old 'mini-me' after it owner sent it to be CLONED - so its talent could be 'preserved'

●Juice' the mongrel works alongside Chinese A-listers and earns six figures for each film he stars in

●His master decided to have the mongrel cloned so 'Little Juice' could carry on entertaining film fans

●The pet was replicated by Sinogene, a Beijing-based biotech firm, and carried by a Beagle surrogate mother

●Scientists at the firm claimed to have found the key to mass-breeding extra strong and fast 'super dogs'

A celebrity dog which has appeared in various Chinese blockbusters has been cloned so its 'mini-me' could carry on entertaining film fans in the country when the famous pooch dies.

Nine-year-old mongrel 'Juice', or 'Guozhi' in Mandarin, is a popular animal star on the silver screen, works alongside Chinese A-listers such as Huang Bo and earns up to six figures for each movie he stars in.

As the one-foot-tall canine gets older and his illustrious career peaks, its owner has decided to have the pet genetically replicated so its talent in acting could be preserved and carried forward by its copy 'Little Juice', according to Sinogene, the company that carried out the cloning service.

Little big star: 'Juice' has starred popular Chinese comedy 'Breakup Buddies' (above) alongside A-lister Huangbo and Xu Zhen

To achieve that, He went to Sinogene, China's first biotech company to provide pet cloning services. Sinogene made headlines when it successfully cloned a gene-edited beagle in May last year. A month later, it launched commercial cloning services.

For at least 380,000 yuan ($55,065), pet owners can clone their pets.

Juice's copy, 'Little Juice' - or 'Zhizhi' in Chinese - was born in mid-September and stayed with its surrogate mother in Sinogene's lab for about a month. The puppy was later given to He at a small ceremony at which the original Juice was present.

While He has not committed Little Juice to show business just yet, he sees lots of potential.

'We believe he'll be even better than the older Juice,' He said.

Juice's copy, 'Little Juice' - or 'Zhizhi' in Chinese - was born in mid-September at the lab of Beijing-based company Sinogene. 

The fluffy puppy melted the hearts of the public when the company released a set of pictures showing the one-month old dog

A framed picture shows Chinese actress Ni Ni holding 'Juice', which has been hailed in China for its talent in acting

Sinogene's CEO Mi Jidong said the company's pet cloning business is in its initial stages, but he plans to expand services to eventually include gene editing.

'We've discovered that more and more pet owners want their pets to accompany them for an even longer period of time,' said Mi.

China's biotech industry is growing rapidly and, compared with similar enterprises in the West, faces relatively few regulatory barriers.

But thanks to the animal cloning services from scientists in Sinogene, 'Little Juice' has been born in honour of 'Juice'

Last year, scientists at Sinogene claimed they had found the key to mass-breeding extra strong and fast 'super dogs' after successfully cloning a gene-edited beagle, named Long Long.

The team of researchers in Beijing say through the technology, they were able to change a dog's nature by modifying its genes, and then reproduce it through cloning.

For example, they could customise a dog to make it have bigger muscles and better running ability before making copies of it, according to Lai Liangxue, the lead researcher.

Welcome to the world: A staff member holds 24-day-old clone of Juice at the biotech company Sinogene on October 11

Staff from Sinogene extract a gene sample from nine-year-old Juice at He Jun's pet resort in Beijing on June 7

A Beagle which is the surrogate mother of the 24 day-old clone of Juice shares an enclosure with the puppy in Sinogen

Earlier this year, a Shanghai lab produced the world's first monkey clones, two long-tailed macaques. More controversially, He Jiankui of China's Southern University of Science and Technology last month claimed he used gene-editing technology to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls.

Tin-Lap Lee, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said while China has regulations on the use of animals for lab research, there are no laws explicitly covering animal cloning.

'On the government side, the image of this cloning industry is very high-tech, and definitely...is very supportive of those high-tech industries because of their high-profit margin,' said Lee.

In Juice's case, skin samples were collected from the dog's lower abdomen and within weeks, Sinogene was able to isolate his DNA and fertilise an egg.

The fertilised egg is then surgically inserted into the uterus of a surrogate mother dog - in this case a beagle.

By REUTERS and TRACY YOU FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED:05:05 EDT, 17 December 2018| UPDATED:11:19 EDT, 17 December 2018