Tom Brady says he has been given “a second chance” with a clone of his beloved family dog.
The Fox Sports broadcaster and retired NFL legend revealed on Nov. 4 that his dog, Junie, is a clone of his family’s previous dog, a pitbull mix named Lua, who died in 2023.
Brady shared the details about Junie as part of a news release by Colossal Biosciences, which announced it has acquired Viagen, a company that specializes in animal cloning.
“I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family,” Brady said in a news release. “A few years ago, I worked with Colossal and leveraged their non-invasive cloning technology through a simple blood draw of our family’s elderly dog before she passed.”
“In a few short months, Colossal gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog,” he continued. “I am excited how Colossal and Viagen’s tech together can help both families losing their beloved pets while helping to save endangered species.”
Brady’s previous dog, Lua, was a beloved pet of Brady, ex-wife Gisele Bündchen and their children.
The family mourned the loss of Lua in December 2023, according to an Instagram post by Bündchen.
“Our little Lulu, our guardian angel is gone to heaven. She will forever live in our hearts,” she wrote.
The family then welcomed Junie, which Brady shared on Nov. 4 is a clone of Lua.
Brady is not the first celebrity to have a dog cloned.
Paris Hilton, who is also an investor in Colossal along with Brady, had a dog cloned in 2023 by Viagen, the company Colossal acquired. Barbra Streisand revealed in 2018 that she had her beloved dog cloned twice.
The world’s first cloned dog was produced by researchers in South Korea in 2005. The first cloned animal in history was a sheep named Dolly that was produced in 1996 at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland using an adult cell.
Colossal said in the news release on Nov. 4 that Viagen has successfully cloned 15 species, including a black-footed ferret and a Przewalski’s horse.
Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm compared the process of cloning to using in-vitro fertilization with skin samples instead of sperm.
“And what you do is, when you have a cell, any cell type, it’s called the somatic cell, you actually take the nucleus out of that cell and you put it into that of an egg cell,” he told NBC News correspondent Emilie Ikeda.
“And that process, better known as cloning, is also referred to as somatic cell nuclear transfer. And once you do that, that essentially becomes an embryo that you put into a surrogate, and then you know, after X, Y, Z, number of gestational days, you get either puppies or cats, or, in the cases of horses, horses from those clone cells.”
He was asked on TODAY whether the cloning process creates an animal of just the same appearance or if there are also the same behavioral traits.
“When you clone an animal, it’s an identical genetic copy. So it’s the physical traits, it’s appearance, but a lot of the behavioral traits as well come with that,” Lamm said. “There’s still environmental factors that affect all of us.”
Cloning pets has become a controversial topic, whether it’s being done by celebrities, social media influencers or pet lovers. A Gallup poll in May found that 59% of respondents said cloning animals is “morally wrong,” while 34% found it acceptable.
Lamm was asked by Ikeda if he would clone his own dogs.
“You know? I don’t know. It’s a great question,” he said. “I think it’s a personal choice.”
Colossal bills itself as a “de-extinction” company that aims to bring extinct species back to life.
It has focused on trying to return the woolly mammoth, dodo bird and Tasmanian tiger to the world. The company announced in April that it has resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that was extinct for roughly 13,000 years and is best known for its presence on “Game of Thrones.”
Cloning a dog is about the equivalent of the median price of buying a new car.
If you’re hoping to make a copy of your beloved pooch or kitty, it costs about $50,000 paid in two equal installments, according to Viagen.
If you want a horse to be cloned, that cost is $85,000, per Viagen.
