Scientists for the first time have cloned a dog. But don't count on a better world populated by identical, well-behaved canines just yet.
That's because the dog duplicated by South Korea's cloning pioneer, Hwang Woo-suk, is an Afghan hound, a resplendent supermodel in a world of mutts, but ranked by dog trainers as the least companionable and most indifferent among the hundreds of canine breeds.
The experiment extends the remarkable string of laboratory successes by Hwang, but also re-ignites a fierce ethical and scientific debate about the rapidly advancing technology.
Last year, Hwang's team created the world's first cloned human embryos. In May, they created the first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients.
Researchers nicknamed their cloned pal Snuppy, which is shorthand for "Seoul National University puppy." One of the dog's co-creators, Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, describes their creation, now 14 weeks old, as "a frisky, healthy, normal, rambunctious puppy."
Researchers congratulated the Korean team on improving techniques that might someday be medically useful. Others, including the cloner of Dolly the sheep, renewed their demand for a worldwide 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," said Ian Wilmut, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh, who produced Dolly nearly a decade ago.
Since then, researchers have cloned cats, goats, cows, mice, pigs, rabbits, horses, deer, mules and gaur, a large wild ox of Southeast Asia. Uncertainties about the health and life span of cloned animals persist; Dolly died prematurely in 2003 after developing cancer and arthritis.
"The ability to use the underlying technology in developing research models and eventually therapies is incredibly promising," said Robert Schenken, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. "However, the paper also points out that in dogs as in most species, cloning for reproductive purposes is unsafe."
The experiment's outcome only seems to buoy the commercial pet-cloning industry, which has charged up to US$50,000 per animal. The first cloned-to-order pet sold in the US was a 9-week-old kitten produced by the biotech firm, Genetic Savings & Clone Inc of Sausalito, California.
Company officials said they expect to commercially clone a dog within a year.
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