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...