Copyright Boston.com
Tom Brady just revealed the double-dog dare to rule them all. If the former NFL quarterback’s dog Junie looks familiar, that’s because she’s a clone of Lua, his beloved pooch who died in December 2023. Brady partnered with Colossal Biosciences, a biotech company that Brady is an investor in, to clone Lua using a blood sample collected before her death, People reported. Brady said that Colossal’s technological approach was “non-invasive” and “gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog,” according to People. Junie shares Lua’s same coloring and markings, making the two brown Pitbull mixes strikingly similar. Since Brady and his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen, adopted Lua more than a decade ago, she could often be seen close to him on walks along the Charles River or in social media posts. In 2014, Brady and Lua starred together in an UGG commercial. Colossal, which launched in 2021, is the same company that claimed in April to have genetically engineered three wolves that resemble the extinct dire wolf species. The company announced Tuesday that it had acquired Viagen, the leading company in animal cloning. “Colossal is thrilled to welcome Viagen, the world’s leading cloning company, into our portfolio,” Ben Lamm, founder and CEO of Colossal, said in the statement. “No other company comes close to what Viagen has achieved. Their unmatched expertise and cloning technology stack have become the world’s standard and their application of these critical and proprietary technologies to endangered species conservation makes them an invaluable partner in advancing our global de-extinction and species preservation mission.” Viagen, which largely clones dogs, cats, and horses, was founded in 2002 and has since cloned 15 species, including the black-footed ferret and Przewalski’s horse, according to the statement.
