Best Friends Again! – unveiling dog clone

“Everyone has a best friend during stage of life – only a precious few have the same one”
(Quote from http://www.bestfriendsagain.com/index.html)

24th April 2005, the first dog clone ever was introduced to the world. The lead scientist, Woo-Suk Hwang, unveiled an Afghan hound, “Snuppy” named for ‘Seoul National University’ puppy. It was created by colleting a genetic material from the ear cell of a three-year-old male Afghan hound and located into an empty egg cell, which then divided and developed into an embryo. Once maturing, it was transferred to a cream Labrador retriever, the surrogate mother of Snuppy. At the caesarean section, Snuppy was born after the full 60 days of pregnancy. Actually, only 3 pregnancies were achieved from 1095 embryos in 123 females. One fetus was miscarried and another clone died of pneumonia soon after birth.

As only Snuppy remained, dog is the most difficult species of all to clone. The unique challenges are;
1) Poorly understood physiology: not enough data and research on the dog reproductive physiology that results a significant knowledge gap.
2) Immature ova: dog ovulates immature ova with 2-5 days completions of their maturation
3) Opaque ova: canine ova have thick permeation and black lipids that makes the opaque ova providing difficulty of assessing
4) Infrequent estrus: regular estrus cycle
5) Animal Welfare
(http://www.bestfriendsagain.com/about/challenges.html)

Recently, Dr. Hwang was successfully accomplished on dog cloning again, which was the first clone of a family dog. Those are mixtures of Collie and Husky, and called Mira, Chingu and Sarang. They are genetic clone of Missy who was a beloved and exceptional family dog. Cloning dog may seem difficult however it provides hope to the families who pine for their old best friends.

Further information:
Best Friends Again: < http://www.bestfriendsagain.com/index.html>
BioArts International: < http://www.bioarts.com/>

References:
Barron, J 2008, Biotech Company to Auction Chances to Clone a Dog, The New York Times, US, viewed 21 May 2008, available at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/us/21dog.html?r=1&scp=3&sq=hwang+woo+suk&st=nyt&oref=slogin>
BBC News 2005, S Korea unveils first dog clone, UK, viewed 24 May 2008, available at:
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4742453.stm>
Planet Ark 2006, Research Confirms Snuppy is World’s First Cloned Dog, UK, viewed 23 May 2008, available at: < http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35539/story.htm>
Website: Best Friends Again 2008, US, viewed 24 May 2008, available at:
< http://www.bestfriendsagain.com/index.html>
Wikipedia 2008, Hwang Woo-Suk, viewed 22 May 2008, available at:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-Suk>
Wikipedia 2008, Snuppy, viewed 24 May 2008, available at:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snuppy>




Jenny (Sung In) Ji
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