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China's scientists were the first in the world to clone the arctic wolf, with the first one born in June and the second to be born in the near future, Mi Jidong, CEO of the Beijing-based gene firm SinoGene Biotechnology Co, said on Monday.    

"The world's first cloned arctic wolf was born a hundred days ago. We organized a press conference to witness this important day together, and I think that this is not only an achievement of SinoGene and Harbin Sun Asia Polar Park, but also our new attempt and a breakthrough in the field of protection and breeding of endangered wild animal species," Mi said during a presentation.    

The wolf named Maya was born on June 10 and is very healthy. The donor cell used in the process came from a wild female arctic wolf's skin sample. Its oocyte was from a female dog and its surrogate mother was a beagle, Zhao Jianping, SinoGene's deputy general manager, revealed.

The birth of the world's first cloned wild arctic wolf is a milestone in cloning technology and of great significance to the conservation of endangered and rare animals, experts believe.

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"To save the endangered animal, we started the research cooperation with Harbin Polarland on cloning the arctic wolf in 2020. After two years of painstaking efforts, the arctic wolf was cloned successfully. It is the first case of its kind in the world," Mi said.

The procedure is safe for dogs, and the life expectancy and health are expected to be the same as in breeds of natural dogs, the CEO told Sputnik.    

He Zhengming, the head of the Chinese Experimental Animal Resources Research Institute for Food and Drug Control, revealed to the Global Times on Monday that cloned animals have the ability to reproduce if they have intact fertilized eggs. Cloning technology has the ability to copy all genetic data for selective breeding; thus, it diversifies the population of endangered animals.

In 2016, the first dog was cloned by SinoGene by using a gene editing mothod.