The project is headed by Mark Westhusin, director of Texas A&M's cloning lab. He was selected by a three-person review board of U.S. and Canadian cloning experts, says Lou Hawthorne, a San Francisco communications consultant who is coordinating "Project Missyplicity." Hawthorne says Westhusin's lab, the only one in the country to have produced puppies by transferring embryos to a surrogate mother, was clearly the most qualified of the applicants. Also on the cloning team are tissue-culture expert Robert Burghardt and embryo transfer expert Duane Kraemer.

LOU HAWTHORNE/COURTESY BIO ARTS AND RESEARCH CORP.

Although Missy's owners want to remain anonymous, the Missyplicity project has all the trappings of a major public relations venture, with a picture-filled Web site (www.missyplicity.com) and its own code of ethics. Every aspect is also being taped and filmed.

Westhusin says "we're just getting started." Missy was flown to Texas several months ago to donate skin and mucus cells. But a lot of basic research will be needed before any cloning is attempted, because relatively little is known about canine reproductive physiology. Westhusin is optimistic that Missy will be cloned, but in any case "the opportunity to do science is just phenomenal." Information gained from the work, he says, will be useful on many fronts, including saving endangered canids and pet contraception.

One early skeptic about the project, who was approached for advice last year, is Princeton University biologist Lee Silver. "Based on what has happened since, and the quality of the scientific team," he says, "I would say there is now a good chance they'll succeed."