Korean Researcher Hwang Woo-suk At It Again .. Clones Dog
Related News: Cloning NewsWell, most of us won't really be suprised by this, but it certainly adds a bit of glam to Hwang's endeavors thusfar. Sure, he has been reportedly quite successful in his stem cell work. But this is "straight up" cloning.
It is being pretty widely reported that Hwang and his team at the Seoul National University, Korea, have announced that they have cloned an Afghan hound now called Snuppy. This procedure is not new .. being the same somatic nuclear cell transfer method used to create Dolly the sheep...
In a press release, Hwang stated ... "Our research goal is to produce cloned dogs for (studying) the disease models, not only for humans, but also for animals." Hwang's team did admitt that they chose the Afghan for its "size and striking appearance". They further stressed that "the purpose of this research is to produce research animals, not domestic pets."
Snuppy ("Seoul National University puppy") was initially grown from adult skin cells taken from an Afghan hound. The team then transferred 1,095 now fertile eggs into 123 surrogate female dogs resulting in only two successful live caesarean births.
Of the two puppies, one which was named "NT-2" died from pneumonia 22 days after birth. An autopsy showed however that it was anatomically normal. Snuppy was delivered on 24 April from a yellow Labrador surrogate.
Read More .. and there are tons or articles out there on this too
Posted on August 4, 2005 03:11 PM