Move over, Fluffy; cloning isn't just for cats anymore. The South Korean researchers who announced earlier this year that they had successfully derived stem cells from a cloned human embryo have now created the first-ever dog clone, a male Afghan hound, they report in
The puppy–named Snuppy for the researchers' Seoul National University–was born by cesarean section on April 24 to a yellow Labrador surrogate mother and turned 100 days old yesterday (August 2). A second cloned dog lived just 22 days before succumbing to aspiration pneumonia. A postmortem analysis showed no signs of "any congenital defect due to cloning," said Woo Suk Hwang, the leader of the Korean team. A third pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage.
Until now, somatic cell cloning in dogs has been hampered by limited success in maturing canine oocytes in vitro, said Hwang. Such maturation is necessary because unlike those of other ...
