South Korean scientists have cloned the first dog, succeeding at a project where laboratories and firms in the United States had been beavering away for years. This is a salutary lesson for Europe, more than for the United States, that research in biotechnology and stem cells is increasingly taking place in the ‘Wild East’.
An Afghan puppy, called Snuppy, is now alive after this process:
The process of dog cloning remains highly inefficient, a reflection of how much scientists still have to learn about how to make mammalian offspring from single parents and without the help of sperm. Multiple surgeries on more than 100 anesthetized dogs and the painstaking creation of more than 1,000 laboratory-grown embryos led to the birth of just two cloned puppies — one of which died after three weeks.
Animal rights activists were unimpressed.
Snuppy’s birth announcement, published in today’s issue of Nature, was greeted with scorn by some animal care activists, who decried the work as inhumane and wasteful, given the global glut of unwanted dogs.
“The cruelty and the body count outweighs any benefit that can be gained from this,” said Mary Beth Sweetland, a vice president at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk.
Cloned pets remain unviable for some time yet.
I guess that’s more than 100 unwanted dogs put to good use then….
Ms Mary Beth Sweetland is welcome to come over to England and rescue around ten thousand foxhounds that are about to be gassed, but I guess she would rather stay at home on the moral high ground.
“The cruelty and the body count outweighs any benefit that can be gained from this,” said Mary Beth Sweetland, a vice president at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk.”
These weren’t bodies, they were barely embryos. I wonder how many PETA members are in favour of human abortion?
Not to mention PETA’s own canine bodycount…
But an Afghan? I’m a confirmed, life long dog lover, and if there’s any more useless breed than Afghans, I can’t imagine what it is (I’ve known about 4 of the pathetic, stupid things so small sample size may be coming into play here).
So many more cooler breeds to clone. …
But also, given that this is SKorea, maybe they have other purposes for wanting to clone dogs than we might imagine.
Completely agree about Afghans – as a child our family pet was an Afghan hound and they really are the loopiest, most disobient animals imaginable. Why couldn’t the scientists have chosen something with at least a modicum of intelligence such as an Alsation or a Border Collie?
Now the search is on to find the most delicious dog in Korea and clone it.
$20 bucks says the Korean restaurant industry is behind this.
Hey, You who make a fun of Koreans eating dog meats, then you cloned lambs and cows other than the scientific purposes??? What a stupid you are!!! The world is not that small like your brains and if you don’t know what you are talking about and go back to school and learn more about histories of another countries.
Heehee, his English is cute!
Relax, Amie.
When our ag industries cloned cows and sheep, there was no secret that they were doing so because of the market for these animals. No one pretended it was for any other reason than to get more of them to eat. We Westerners are doing nothing more than attributing to the Koreans the exact same motivations we had ourselves when we got into the cloning biz.
To hell with your cool logic, R C Dean!
Isn’t the rationale at this stage behind cloning simply scientific experimentation? Cloning edible animals is way more expensive than breeding them as they are bred now.
What would be good for the food industry is genetically engineering animals so that they taste better, have no feelings or emotions and don’t mind being eaten – like the cow in Douglas Adam’s “Restaurant at the end of the universe.” When you’ve got that animal, that’s when to start the industrial scale cloning since it probably won’t be able to reproduce itself very well.
And you say they’re cloning beavers in the States?
You relax!!!
The flaw in your words is that because you are saying that you make all westerners look like fools. Do you know that?
amie lee,
all westerners are fools. we don’t care.
(i can’t claim to speak for others here)
I’d have thought that they’d go for a breed with less hair, and more meat, oh well.
While Europe and the US compete to see what will retard progress more, the precautionary principle and animal rights militants or religious fundamentalism, the East is quietly getting better and better at this stuff.