S.Korean scientists create world’s first cloned dog

by Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL (Reuters) – Man can now reproduce his best friend –
South Korean scientists announced on Wednesday they had created
the world’s first cloned dog.

Woo-Suk Hwang and his team of researchers at Seoul National
University made world headlines earlier this year when they
created stem cells with a patient’s specific genetic material,
derived through cloned embryos.

Now they have cemented their place as leaders in the field
by creating Snuppy, the first dog cloned from adult cells by
somatic nuclear cell transfer. This is the same technique used
to create Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal, and other
animals.

Hwang said the breakthrough in cloning dogs may advance
work on combating diseases by therapeutic cloning with stem
cells.

“Our research goal is to produce cloned dogs for (studying)
the disease models, not only for humans, but also for animals,”
Hwang told a press conference.

Snuppy, short for Seoul National University puppy, where
Hwang’s lab is located, is a male born by caesarean section
weighing 530 grams (19 ounces) on April 24 after a normal,
full-term pregnancy in a yellow Labrador surrogate mother.

The second puppy, NT-2, weighed in at 550 grams (19.4
ounces) but died 22 days later from pneumonia. A post-mortem
exam showed there were no anatomical problems with the dog that
died.

A total of 1,095 reconstructed embryos were transferred
into 123 surrogates to create the two dogs — an efficiency
rate of 1.6 percent.

Both puppies were created from an adult skin cell taken
from a male Afghan hound using somatic cell nuclear transfer.
Sheep, mice, cows, goats, pigs, rabbits, cats, a mule and horse
have been cloned in the same way.

The Afghan breed was selected mainly for its size and
striking appearance, researchers said.

“The purpose of this research is to produce research
animals, not domestic pets,” the research team said in a
statement.

They said the difficulty in producing dog clones
“underscores the importance of responsible regulation of this
vital science.”

CANINE DIFFICULTY

The scientists believe the ability to clone dogs will help
to determine environmental and genetic contributions to traits
of different breeds and could also help preserve rare species.

Scientist Gerald Schatten, who participated in the study,
said cloning dogs may help scientists study diseases that
affect dogs as well as humans such as cancer and diabetes.
Therapeutic stem cell techniques for diseases could be tested
in dogs and then used to treat humans, he said.

“By learning whether it is safe and effective in our (pet)
companions, we may also know whether it is safe and effective
for our loved ones,” said Schatten, a medical researcher at the
University of Pittsburgh.

Therapeutic cloning involves creating embryos for a supply
of stem cells to be used for research or therapy to develop
cures diseases ranging from diabetes to Parkinson. Stem cells
are master cells that can be coaxed to develop in any cell
tissue type in the body.

It has taken scientists longer to clone a dog than other
animals because of the difficulty in producing mature,
unfertilized canine eggs in the laboratory.

Unlike other mammals, dog eggs are released earlier from
the ovary than in other species. Instead of maturing the eggs
in the lab, the researchers overcame the problem by collecting
mature eggs from the dogs.

Their achievement is reported in the science journal
Nature.

The egg’s genetic material was removed and replaced with
the nucleus of the skin cell from a male Afghan hound, then
fused to create an embryo, which was implanted into a surrogate
mother at the correct time to coincide with the embryo
development.

Some scientists cautioned there are many unresolved ethical
questions about where the science may lead.

“Techniques that advance our understanding of diseases and
their therapy are to be encouraged but cloning of animals
raises many ethical and moral issues that have still to be
properly debated within the profession,” Freda Scott-Park,
President-Elect of the British Veterinary Association said in a
statement. (With additional reporting by Maggie Fox in
Washington)