In what is sure to be a popular move with animal rights activists and conservative Republicans everywhere, the Seoul National University in South Korea has produced the first cloned puppies.  One of them died recently after it was born, but the other has lived for the past 16 weeks.  The researchers expect Snuppy (named for “Seoul National University puppy") and more like him to lead to advancements in diagnosing and treating human diseases.

To breed Snuppy, the researchers took genetic material from a cell in the ear of a three-year-old Afghan male hound and planted it in an empty egg cell.  They then stimulated growth in the cell and planted it in a surrogate yellow labrador mother.  After 60 days, Snuppy came into the world via Caesarean section.  The researchers were lucky; out of over a thousand embryos transferred into 123 recipient dogs, only three took hold, and of these only Snuppy still lives as one miscarriaged and the other died after birth.

There is some controversy over the cloning, but the scientists are doing the cloning processes to learn more about diseases and how to treat them, instead of trying to bring beloved family pets back to life as some people seem to desire.

“The overall objective of this programme is to learn about the root causes of diseases.  We believe it is possible, if you can responsibly develop the ability to derive stem cells from cloned dog embryos, that our very best friends may turn out to be the first beneficiaries of stem cell medicine,” said Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

“And as we treat naturally occurring diseases in dogs, we’ll learn about whether it is effective in our pets and we’ll also learn whether it’s safe and effective for our loved ones,” he continued.