Cloning has gone to the dogs as Snuppy makes an appearance
Many of us will be familiar with the sadness and despair of losing a beloved pet but if you had the chance to clone your favourite dog, cat or hamster, would you take it?
Nearly two decades ago this week, scientists finally broke the hound barrier in the field of biotechnology when the world’s first cloned dog, Snuppy, was unveiled to the world.
On April 24, 2005, images of the adorable sevenmonth-old Afghan hound, sitting beside his genetic father, circulated after scientists at Seoul National University managed a feat that had eluded others for years.
The team of 45 South Korean researchers, led by Woo Suk Hwang, created Snuppy from a single cell taken from an Afghan hound’s ear.
After Scottish scientists made history with Dolly the sheep, the world’s first successfully cloned animal in 1996, the race had been on to clone other animals. Mammals like cats, mice, rabbits, pigs, cows and horses had been successfully cloned but dogs proved trickier, due to their shorter breeding window. Snuppy was one of only two puppies to make it to term after 1,095 extracted eggs were implanted in 123 surrogate dogs. The second puppy sadly died of pneumonia three weeks after birth.
The history-making canine was named as Time Magazine’s Most Amazing Invention of 2005 and the SCU went on to clone 30 dogs and five wolves.
Yet the cloning breakthrough prompted Edinburgh University’s Professor Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, to warn: “There is a great need for a global 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, given an optimised method.” Woo Suk Hwang was celebrated for his team’s pioneering efforts, including his work on the first cloned human embryos and the first viable stem cells from cloned human embryos.
However, his reputation later fell into disrepute after he was accused of ethics violations and fabricating data.
Hwang was fired by Seoul National University but a later study into Snuppy confirmed he was indeed the world’s first cloned dog.
Today, animals are cloned mostly for research purposes.
In January, Chinese researchers confirmed the first cloned rhesus monkey cloned had survived two years to reach maturity.
The species is widely used in medical research because its physiology is similar to humans.
Scientists are also testing if cloning can revive extinct species. A cloned Przewalski’s horse, a species that went extinct in the wild in the 1960s, was born recently in San Diego Zoo using a stallion’s DNA cryopreserved more than 40 years ago. However, most experts agree that cloning is not a feasible conservation strategy.
Woo Suk Hwang went on to work under a new company, Sooam Biotech, where he recreated cloned dogs for owners whose dogs had died for $100k, yet the practice has drawn much criticism.
As for Snuppy, he went on to breed with another cloned dog using artificial insemination and fathered nine puppies in 2008. The SNU’S beloved campus mascot lived to 10 years old and died in 2005.