South Korean team produces three cloned dogs
Pastor Dale Morgan
South Korean team produces three cloned dogs*
Reuters
Monday, December 18, 2006; 4:35 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) - A team of South Korean scientists once led by
disgraced stem-cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk said on Monday they had
produced three cloned copies of a female Afghan hound.
The same team at Seoul National University last year produced Snuppy,
the world's first cloned dog, also an Afghan hound.
"This is being done to advance medical research and it is not yet
intended for people to clone their pets," Lee Byung-chun, a veterinary
professor at the university and who now heads the team, told Reuters.
Hwang and other members have since left their posts at the university
after Hwang's team fabricated data in two papers on human embryonic stem
cells that have since been debunked.
Lee and other team members showed off to reporters the identical white
and tan puppies, named Bona, Peace and Hope and born in June and July.
"Lee's team plans to utilize the breakthrough in producing
cell-treatment drugs as well as apply the technology in preserving
animals on the verge of extinction," the government's information
service said in a statement.
It said the international veterinary journal Theriogenology had
published the findings online.
Dogs are considered among the most difficult mammals to clone because of
their reproductive cycle.
Hwang's success at cloning the first dog has been independently verified
but he is facing criminal prosecution on charges of fraud and
embezzlement related to his team's human embryonic stem cell research.
Lee said his team had used the same technology as before under Hwang but
had made it more efficient. Hwang has said that he chose Afghan hounds
because of their striking looks.
A total of 1,095 reconstructed embryos were transferred into 123
surrogates to create two living puppies last year -- Snuppy and another
dog that died after 22 days from pneumonia.
This time, 167 reconstructed embryos were transferred into 12 surrogate
mothers to produce the three living clones, Lee said.