S. Korea produces 1st cloned dog
By Rick Weiss
The Washington Post
Journalists take pictures of Snuppy, the first successfully cloned dog, during a news conference at the Seoul National University on Wednesday. South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk cloned Snuppy. (Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press)
WASHINGTON - South Korean researchers Wednesday said they have created the world’s first cloned dog: a playful black, tan and white Afghan hound named Snuppy.
The puppy, grown from a single cell taken from the ear of a 3-year-old male Afghan, marks a milestone in the race to fabricate genetically identical dogs for research and as companion animals.
The achievement required a staggering amount of work. Multiple surgeries on more than 100 anesthetized dogs and the painstaking creation of more than 1,000 laboratory-grown embryos led to the birth of just two cloned puppies - one of which died after three weeks.
But the feat suggests that a market in cloned dogs, through which people grieving the loss of their favorite pets could order genetic duplicates, may not be as futuristic as some had thought. By leapfrogging a 7-year-old, multimillion dollar U.S. effort, the success has clinched South Korea’s quickly growing reputation as a premier center for cloning and stem cell research.
The researchers said canine cloning will allow them to test stem-cell therapies under development for people and, perhaps, cure some dog diseases along the way.
‘‘Wouldn’t it be great if the first beneficiaries of stem cell medicine were our best friends?’’ asked Gerald Schatten, a reproductive scientist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who served as a consultant for the Korean team.
Snuppy’s birth announcement, published in today’s issue of the journal Nature, was greeted with scorn by some animal care activists, who decried the work as inhumane and wasteful given the global glut of unwanted dogs.
‘‘The cruelty and the body count outweighs any benefit that can be gained from this,’’ said Mary Beth Sweetland, a vice president at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk, Va.
Others expressed concern that publication of the team’s advanced techniques may help rogue scientists create the first human clone.
But the researchers and others defended the achievement as an important step toward boosting the usefulness of dogs as biomedical research tools.
From dachshunds to Great Danes, dogs are extremely diverse, and many of the more than 400 breeds are predisposed to particular diseases. Scientists hope clones with propensities for specific illnesses will help them decipher the molecular underpinnings of those syndromes and develop treatments for the human diseases those dog ailments mimic.
Cloning Fido:
Why a Dog? Canines share physiological characteristics with people and scientists believe this will aid in disease treatment research.
Drawbacks: Some fear this achievement draws the world perilously closer to the cloning of humans to make babies. South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk and other leading scientists are calling for a ban on human reproductive cloning.
It’s about a future society where people can implant their conscience into replicas of themselves. The replicas can then go do things and at the end of the day they download their memories into the original.
It’s actually a detective saga set in said society. I thought it had a slight relation to the topic of cloning.
Tyler wrote:
“wouldn’t be a boxer then, would it!”
Oh, you can keep in the “kidney beaning”, the goofiness, the silliness, and the ability to be everyone’s friend.
Just a little more brain, and a little less drool - that’s all I ask.
Oh - and cure Wyley’s bad breath and Buster bad smells out the other end.
is there a type command or function keystroke or HTML tag for a quote? I do it the way I do because I’m usually typing, and not using the mouse. If it’s that much of a problem, I’ll go ahead and use the quote thingy.
Sorry - it’s the old typist / not / computer person coming out in me.
[quote=“missy”]is there a type command or function keystroke or HTML tag for a quote? I do it the way I do because I’m usually typing, and not using the mouse. If it’s that much of a problem, I’ll go ahead and use the quote thingy.
Sorry - it’s the old typist / not / computer person coming out in me.[/quote]
You can just type it like this
I must say that the way you quote is a trade make; much like jim stone’s writing is immediately recognizable.
PS Disabled the BBCode in this post to show the code
