Scientists Clone Man's Best Friend

[Hum]

:huh: DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Scientists for the first time have cloned a dog.

Researchers nicknamed their cloned pal Snuppy, which is shorthand for "Seoul National University puppy." One of the dog's co-creators, Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, describes their creation, now 14 weeks old, as "a frisky, healthy, normal, rambunctious puppy."

Researchers congratulated the Korean team on improving techniques that might someday be medically useful. Others, including the cloner of Dolly the sheep, renewed their demand for a worldwide ban on human reproductive cloning.

"Successful cloning of an increasing number of species confirms the general impression that it would be possible to clone any mammalian species, including humans," said Ian Wilmut, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh, who produced Dolly nearly a decade ago.

"The ability to use the underlying technology in developing research models and eventually therapies is incredibly promising," said Robert Schenken, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. "However, the paper also points out that in dogs as in most species, cloning for reproductive purposes is unsafe."

The experiment's outcome only seems to buoy the commercial pet-cloning industry, which has charged up to $50,000 (euro41,000) per animal. The first cloned-to-order pet sold in the United States was a 9-week-old kitten produced by the biotech firm, Genetic Savings & Clone Inc. of Sausalito, California.

Company officials said they expect to commercially clone a dog within a year using eggs collected from spaying procedures at veterinary clinics. The South Korean researchers can surgically remove eggs from research animals with fewer regulations than in the United States.

But the dog cloning team tried to distance its work from commercial cloning. "This is to advance stem cell science and medicine, not to make dogs by this unnatural method," Schatten said.

On scientific terms, the experiment's success was mixed. More than 1,000 cloned embryos were implanted into surrogate mothers and just three pregnancies resulted. That's a cloning efficiency rate lower than experiments with cloned cats and horses. Details appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Like Dolly and other predecessors, Snuppy was created using a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT.

Scientists transfer genetic material from the nucleus of a donor adult cell to an egg whose nucleus -- with its genetic material -- has been removed. The reconstructed egg holding the DNA from the donor cell is treated with chemicals or electric current to stimulate cell division.

Once the cloned embryo reaches a suitable stage, it is transferred to the uterus of a surrogate where it continues to develop until birth.

Dog eggs are problematic because they are released from the ovary earlier than in other mammals. This time, the researchers waited and collected more mature unfertilized eggs from the donors' fallopian tubes.

They used DNA from skin cells taken from the ear of a 3-year-old male Afghan hound to replace the nucleus of the eggs. Of the three pregnancies that resulted, there was one miscarried fetus and one puppy that died of pneumonia 22 days after birth.

That left Snuppy as the sole survivor. He was delivered by Caesarean section from his surrogate mother, a yellow Labrador retriever.

Researchers determined that both of the puppies that initially survived were genetically identical to the donor dog.

Schatten said the Afghan hound's genetic profile is relatively pure and easy to distinguish compared to dogs with more muddled backgrounds. But dog experts said the researchers' choice of breed choice was disquieting.

"The Afghan hound is not a particularly intelligent dog, but it is beautiful," said psychologist Stanley Coren, author of the best-selling manual "The Intelligence of Dogs." He ranked the Afghan hound last among 119 breeds in temperament and trainability.

"Many people who opt for the cloning technique are more interested in fashionable looks," he said. "Whenever we breed dogs for looks and ignore behavior, we have suffered."

full story:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/08/03...e.ap/index.html

[Deathray]

Edit- nvm, got confused :p

Cool stuff

[Soham]

puppy named snuffy in souel in my university kaist

[_kane81]

This technology could save a lot of species from extinction! :)

Hopefully used for good, rather than evil.

[imtoomuch]

Too bad there are so many flaws to cloning.

[Hum]

I say, clone Bigfoot ! :woot:

[reveries]

loll

[GhostShell]

I just saw this on the news. Pretty cool stuff.

[icecaveman]

This technology could save a lot of species from extinction! :)

Hopefully used for good, rather than evil.

586322929[/snapback]

Tell me how many uses there are for evil cloning? You mean like cloning a celebrity and selling nude pictures to some paparazzi for a great money sum? :rofl:

[kjordan2001]

Tell me how many uses there are for evil cloning? You mean like cloning a celebrity and selling nude pictures to some paparazzi for a great money sum?  :rofl:

586323188[/snapback]

Or I could clone myself some Storm Troopers :shifty:

[golazo]

i'd like to clone my old year 9 maths teacher and make her my mistress :ninja:

[Nexus-]

while this has many good benefits like saving a species from extinction i can not see using it on dogs or cats. You are cloning something that WILL NOT be your best friend. it will look like it but it will never have the same thoughts or memories that made it the animal you came to know (this is besides the soul thing which i do not take a stand one way or the other). You have changed as a person over the years and whats to say that the world or you wont change the new pet and make it a different animal then the one you came to love.

Theres also the money issues involved like why dont you get over your loss and move on and donate the money to a good cause. your pet would probably have wished you to not waste the money bringing himself or herself back and it would probably like you to take home an animal from a shelter that would likely be put to sleep. If your so destraut that you can not take home a new pet (i respect that) then donate the money to the a local shelter. Or put it to some good use for you or for another donate it to an opranige or charity or maybe if you dont wish to do that spend it on something for yourself, you will never be able to bring back the pet you lost so you might as well NOT attempt to create something that looks the same because it wont be the same in its mind.

[Diffused Mind]

i'd like to clone my old year 9 maths teacher and make her my mistress :ninja:

586323207[/snapback]

You're not the only one. :ninja: