IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED, a little sooner than most of us anticipated, perhaps. High-profile South Korean research scientist Hwang Woo-Suk of the Seoul National University, South Korea, has successfully performed the world's first known canine cloning operation. A young Afghan Hound names Snuppy (short for Seoul National University puppy), now 13 weeks old, was revealed to the world's press yesterday.
The process that produced Snuppy is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The domestic dog is considered one of the most difficult species to clone, for various reasons associated with its reproductive process. Eggs cannot, for instance, be matured in vitro as is possible in some species; canine ova are released from the ovary before they are mature, and must mature in the fallopian tubes of the female prior to fertilisation. In the successful cloning process, scientists removed eggs from bitches, removed the nucleus of the ovum and replaced it with a cell nucleus taken from the skin of a male Afghan hound's ear. A total of 1,095 artifially created embryos were transferred into 123 surrogate dams to create the two whelps that actually came to term (and were delivered by caesarean section). The second puppy died of pneumonia in 22 days. The efficiency rate of the process was only 1.6% -- but perhaps not too bad considering the ground-breaking nature of the work.
Because the research was done in South Korea, the scientists could use large numbers of dogs maintained under looser animal welfare regulations than those of, for example, the United States. It is stated that the dogs were created strictly for scientific purposes. "We are not in the business of cloning pets," said Gerald Schatten, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who collaborated with stem-cell research pioneer Hwang on the Korean cloning project.
Sausalito, California, company Genetic Savings & Clone is still working on its own canine cloning project, which will ultimately (it is hoped) result in the successful completion of "the Missyplicity Project," the cloning of "Missy," the now dead mongrel pet of Texas billionaire and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling. GS&C has already successfully cloned pet cats, using a process called chromatin transfer, at a price of US$50,000 (which was recently reduced to US$32,000). As GS&C has confidently stated that it expects to clone dogs sometime this year, we presume the company will not be far behind in the canine cloning race, but with a process that (it is claimed) may result in fewer failures and a healthier clone than the first-generation somatic-cell nuclear transfer technique. The California company already runs a "gene-banking" service to allow pet owners to preserve DNA samples in anticipation of future cloning.
This news has far-reaching implications for the dog world. People are very attached to their pets; some have the money to pay for clones however expensive they may be. Westminster and Crufts dog show winners may also be potential candidates for cloning. AKC, for one example, has not yet closed the door to such a possibility and has already approved the use of a range of repro-tech procedures ranging from artificial insemination using the frozen banked semen of deceased stud dogs to DNA microsatellite identification of frequently-used sires.
How long do you suppose it will be now before we see a team of clones of some elite racing dog (the example I like to use is George Attla's "Lingo") entered in the Fairbanks Open North American Championship?