Scientists in Russia and South Korea have signed an agreement to clone a woolly mammoth using cells from mammoth remains discovered in the Siberian permafrost.

The North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic has agreed to provide the remains, and stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.

Hwang was found to have faked much of his stem cell research back in 2006, but he was also responsible for Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog.

Before the mammoth project can proceed, the teams will have to find mammoth somatic cells with undamaged nuclei, which can then be transplanted into the egg cells of an Indian elephant.

"This will be a really tough job, but we believe it is possible because our institute is good at cloning animals," Sooam researcher Hwang In-Sung said. The foundation's previous cloning successes include a cow, a cat, dogs, a pig and a wolf.

Sooam intends to start the process as soon as the Russian university can ship its mammoth specimen.

This isn't the first agreement of its kind: Japanese scientists at Kinki University partnered with a Russian museum late last year for their own mammoth-cloning project.

[physorg]