Korea clones first dog.

Flukey

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7785

The New Scientist Magazine wrote:

The world’s first cloned dog has been revealed by researchers. South Korea’s “king of cloning”, Woo Suk Hwang has successfully cloned an Afghan hound.

The breakthrough is bound to lead to excitement among dog lovers who long to clone their dead pets, but Gerald Schatten at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, US, has stern words. “We are not in the business of cloning pets,” he says. “We perform nuclear transfer for medical research.”

Producing “Snuppy” – or Seoul National University puppy – was not easy. Hwang’s team put together 1095 eggs containing the DNA of a three-year-old adult male Afghan, and transferred them into 123 surrogate mothers. Just three pregnancies resulted: one miscarried, and two others went to term. One of the clones died from pneumonia at 22 days old.

“Professor Hwang and his colleagues are to be congratulated on another great success,” says Ian Wilmut, creator of Dolly the sheep, at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Happy families

The team used somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same technique used to create Dolly. To clone Snuppy, the researchers implanted nuclei from his father’s ear cells into eggs from female dogs, having removed the eggs’ nuclei.

After being zapped with a small electric shock to start development, the embryos were implanted into the uterus of a surrogate mother – in Snuppy’s case, a labrador. The team used DNA fingerprinting to confirm that Snuppy was genetically identical to his “father”.

To see the happy clone family frolicking, click here for a short video (15 MB, avi format, requires RealPlayer or Quicktime).

Research applications

Successful nuclear transfer in dogs has been elusive until now because it is difficult to get egg cells to mature in the lab. Hwang got around the problem by using naturally ovulated egg cells – those which have naturally been released from the ovaries into the fallopian tubes. Snuppy is the latest mammal to be cloned after sheep, mice, cats, rats, cows, goats, pigs, horses, rabbits and a mule.

There are many research applications for cloning in dogs, says Katrin Hinrichs, of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University, US, who was the first to clone a horse in the US. “There are human diseases for which we have dog models,” she says. “It would be of great benefit to have multiple genetically identical animals to study the pathogenesis and treatment of these diseases.”

Inherited diseases, for example are a serious problem in purebred dogs. Many, such as malformed hip joints, are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, and having clones will enable scientists to tease apart these factors.

Dogs in a dish

Schatten, who was part of Hwang’s team, says that the cloning of dogs is a step towards the cloning of canine stem cells. Stem cells can currently only be cloned in mice and human cells.

“Once stem cells can be established it may be possible to learn about the genetic basis of traits by studying cells in a dish rather than in the dogs themselves,” he says.

But despite Schatten’s warning, many people are likely to immediately look to the possibility of cloning beloved pets. “I am sure that some people will think that it is worth spending money to have a puppy with a specific genotype,” says Hinrichs.

Why did they choose an Afghan to clone? “Having a distinctive dog means that if we’d [ended up with] a dachshund we’d know that something funny had happened,” says Schatten.

Seeing as it is Korea, I am wondering how long is it before he ends up on the menu? Of course if he was really tasty they could have him every night!
Seriously though, I think cloning is a dangerous road to go down. There are still doubts around Dolly the sheep and others and how their life and health progressed.

kodute

they won't really know for sure untill a human is done.

Flukey

Well let's not take that chance. There are other, more natural ways, of creating human beings. We should stick to them.

Hobbes

Flukey wrote:

Seeing as it is Korea, I am wondering how long is it before he ends up on the menu?

Probably.. never.

First up Dog Soup is made from only one kind of dog (Yellow dog). Other dogs are considered pets (in much the same way with rabbits in Ireland).

Second a few years back there was a huge scandal where Dogs that were used for science/medical testing where sold as food. So anyone left over that would be wary of eating such thing.

Last thing, eating of Dog soup isn't as popular as it was. Its normally the very old men being the main demographic for it.

Pigman II

I guess the Americans will have to clone a QuarterPounderWithCheese now.

kodute

But what happened to pushing the boundaries of science and expanding what we know about the human body? Shouldn't we consider it may be a good thing rather than focus on the threats?

monkeyfudge

Did anyone see the film 'The Sixth Day'

They had a pet cloning company in it called 'Re-pet'

Personally I have no problem with cloning as long as George Lucas has nothing to do with it.

gregos

Pigman II wrote:

I guess the Americans will have to clone a QuarterPounderWithCheese now.

They did!

Pigman II

Cool! Lemme guess, they're calling it 'Vial With Cheese'?

Flukey

There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Geneartion, where a planet full of clones were having problems as making copies of copies of copies eventually leads to quality loss. Another group from another planet, who were actually long distance relations, as an original group had set up colonies on the two different planets were the solution. Their planet had become unsafe and they were brought to the one where they clones were allowing a new input of DNA and a return to natural forms of reproduction.

Kodute, expanding the boundaries of science is all very well, but you have to draw limits. Cloning would be the most extreme kind of human guinea pig and not the type of thing you can just experiment with. Bringing a potentially flawed human being in and having them live their lives, purely at the whim of scientists is unethical. It is not the same as a person being born naturally disabled. While they may be well intentioned it is too great a risk and certainly not fair on the resultant person and what they may have to go through.

As well as the scientific risks, there are many other problems and issues. Simple things like who is the child's parents, a major thing for a person, and what do you tell them about their existence? How do you go about telling them that they are basically a laboratory experiment and explain all the potential risks? They would be a human being with feelings and emotions and all the other things that go with being human, not just some experiment. There are all sorts of issues to be considered. There would be many issues for the person that they were cloned from too. Making a human clone may sound simplistic but it is very complex and a dangerous route to take, for a lot of reasons.

kodute

I know its a horrible thought from a moral and ethical view but this sort of research could open up new avenues in genetic research. Of course for now we couldn't let it be done but it might allow us to understand how genetic disorders come about and hence help alot of people in the long term.

KO

Flukey wrote:

There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Geneartion, where a planet full of clones were having problems as making copies of copies of copies eventually leads to quality loss.

Red Dwarf did it first

dimerocks

ahhh how many news papers had the headline give the dog a clone, i saw two today in the sun and the mirror.

Flukey

A sort of cloned headline!

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

aidan_dunne

I can't take this seriously, to be honest. I mean, come on, look at the guy's name:

South Korea’s “king of cloning”, Woo Suk Hwang

Now, come on, if that's not a comedy name (try saying it fast - "Who Suck Wang" - geddit? ) I don't know what is!