Snuppy
Encyclopedia
Snuppy is an Afghan hound
, credited with being the world's first cloned
dog
. The puppy was created using the cell
of an ear from an adult Afghan hound and involved 123 surrogate mothers, of which only three produced pups (Snuppy being the sole survivor). The team of 45 responsible for cloning Snuppy was led by biomedical scientist
Hwang Woo-Suk
, who was later found to have lied about his research on previous projects, however independent investigators discovered that Snuppy was a true clone. Snuppy has since been used in the first known successful breeding between cloned canines, after his sperm was used to artificially inseminate two cloned females, which resulted in the birth of 10 puppies in 2008. Replacement team leader and veterinarian Yi Byeong-cheon
used this technology to clone the first sterilized working dogs, Toppy
.
, horses, mice, mules, pigs, rabbits and rats but had been unable to successfully clone a dog due to the problematic task of maturing a canine ovum
in an artificial environment. After several failed attempts by other scientists, Woo-Suk Hwang, a professor of Seoul National University
, and a team of other scientists were able to successfully create a clone using tissue
from the ear of a 3-year-old Afghan hound.
123 surrogate mothers were used to carry the embryos, of which 1,095 were implanted, the procedure resulted in only three pregnancies; one resulted in a miscarriage, the other pup was born successfully but died of pneumonia
three weeks after birth, the successful clone was carried by a Labrador Retriever
. From the original 1,095 embryos to the final two puppies, this placed the success rate of the project at less than two tenths of a percent. Snuppy was named as a portmanteau of the initials of the Seoul National University (SNU) and the word "puppy".
, the eggs could only be harvested during a three-week period each year. Due to complexities with removing eggs from canine ovaries the eggs had to be extracted from the oviduct
, which required constant monitoring to achieve. The nucleus of each egg was replaced with the cell from the ear of the adult dog and then electrified and fused using a chemical reaction
. The embryos were then transferred to the surrogate dogs. Three of the surrogate mothers became pregnant and two successfully gave birth. Snuppy, the first to be born, survived while the other died two weeks after birth. This process of cloning Snuppy took nearly three years of intensive effort.
, director of Columbia University's Masters in Bioethics program, who cited that the process raised the question of if humans are "just a mass of cells and biological processes?" Hwang himself criticised the process, stating that it did not bring science any closer to human cloning
and the complexities, coupled with the low success rate (one in 123), did not make it ethical to clone family pets. Ian Wilmut
, the scientist behind the successful cloning of Dolly the sheep, said that the successful cloning of Snuppy proved that any mammal could be cloned in the correct environments and that a global ban on human cloning needed to be quickly implemented because of this. The Kennel Club
criticised the entire concept of dog cloning, on the grounds that their mission is to "To promote in every way the general improvement of dogs" and no improvement can occur if replicas are being created.
. It was later found that photographs he published did not depict what was suggested and that most of the stem-cell lines he claimed to have created were not clones at all. This brought serious doubts onto the validity of Snuppy, which Hwang consistently claimed was a genuine clone. Hwang hired HumanPass Inc., a Korean DNA lab to investigate Snuppy, who found that Snuppy was authentic. The findings by HumanPass were dismissed on the grounds that they were employed by Hwang, and a panel at the Seoul National University ordered their own investigation. The investigation found that, despite his fabrications in previous projects, Hwang's research related to Snuppy was accurate and Snuppy was a clone of the adult Afghan hound. As a result of his forgeries, Hwang was indicted for fraud and dismissed from the university.
took over leadership of the team behind Snuppy. In 2008, Snuppy became involved in the first known successful breeding between cloned canines, after sperm taken from Snuppy was used to artificially inseminate two cloned females, which resulted in the birth of 10 puppies. Nine of the puppies survived. The SNU team, under Lee, have gone on to successfully clone over 30 dogs and five wolves. After successfully breeding the cloned wolves, Lee claimed that the ability to breed cloned canines makes it possible for working dog
s which are usually sterilised before training, such as sniffer dogs and guide dog
s, to reproduce. SNU, which claims to own the patent for the process used to clone Snuppy, formed a license agreement with RNL Bio, a commercial pet cloning company. Hwang entered into a partnership with RNL Bio's competitor, BioArts International, which caused an on-going legal battle into who owns the patent rights. RNL completed the first commercial cloning in August 2008.
The world's first cloned sniffer dogs (all of which are named Toppy
) were put to work by South Korean customs in July 2009.
Afghan Hound
The Afghan Hound is one of the oldest sighthound dog breeds. Distinguished by its thick, fine, silky coat and its tail with a ring curl at the end, the breed acquired its unique features in the cold mountains of Afghanistan, where it was originally used to hunt hares and gazelles by coursing them....
, credited with being the world's first cloned
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
. The puppy was created using the cell
Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....
of an ear from an adult Afghan hound and involved 123 surrogate mothers, of which only three produced pups (Snuppy being the sole survivor). The team of 45 responsible for cloning Snuppy was led by biomedical scientist
Biomedical scientist
A biomedical scientist is a scientist trained in biology, particularly in the context of medicine...
Hwang Woo-Suk
Hwang Woo-Suk
Hwang Woo-suk is a South Korean veterinarian and researcher. He was a professor of theriogenology and biotechnology at Seoul National University who became infamous for fabricating a series of experiments, which appeared in high-profile journals, in the field of stem cell research...
, who was later found to have lied about his research on previous projects, however independent investigators discovered that Snuppy was a true clone. Snuppy has since been used in the first known successful breeding between cloned canines, after his sperm was used to artificially inseminate two cloned females, which resulted in the birth of 10 puppies in 2008. Replacement team leader and veterinarian Yi Byeong-cheon
Yi Byeong-cheon
Yi Byeong-cheon , is the veterinary professor at Seoul National University responsible for the ₩300 million KRW "Toppy" dog cloning program. Yi is a former aide to Hwang Woo-suk, a pioneer in the field with the "Snuppy" clone, who fell from grace after his stem cell research turned out to have been...
used this technology to clone the first sterilized working dogs, Toppy
Toppy
Toppy is the name of the world's first cloned working dogs. They are seven Labrador Retriever clones, and they were born in late 2007 to three surrogate mothers...
.
History
After Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996, scientists had managed to clone numerous other animals, including cats, cows, gaurGaur
The gaur , also called Indian bison, is a large bovine native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. The species is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986 as the population decline in parts of the species' range is likely to be well over 70% over the last three generations...
, horses, mice, mules, pigs, rabbits and rats but had been unable to successfully clone a dog due to the problematic task of maturing a canine ovum
Ovum
An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
in an artificial environment. After several failed attempts by other scientists, Woo-Suk Hwang, a professor of Seoul National University
Seoul National University
Seoul National University , colloquially known in Korean as Seoul-dae , is a national research university in Seoul, Korea, ranked 24th in the world in publications in an analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, 7th in Asia and 42nd in the world by the 2011 QS World University Rankings...
, and a team of other scientists were able to successfully create a clone using tissue
Tissue (biology)
Tissue is a cellular organizational level intermediate between cells and a complete organism. A tissue is an ensemble of cells, not necessarily identical, but from the same origin, that together carry out a specific function. These are called tissues because of their identical functioning...
from the ear of a 3-year-old Afghan hound.
123 surrogate mothers were used to carry the embryos, of which 1,095 were implanted, the procedure resulted in only three pregnancies; one resulted in a miscarriage, the other pup was born successfully but died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
three weeks after birth, the successful clone was carried by a Labrador Retriever
Labrador Retriever
The Labrador Retriever is one of several kinds of retriever, a type of gun dog. A breed characteristic is webbed paws for swimming, useful for the breed's original purpose of retrieving fishing nets. The Labrador is the most popular breed of dog by registered ownership in Canada, the United...
. From the original 1,095 embryos to the final two puppies, this placed the success rate of the project at less than two tenths of a percent. Snuppy was named as a portmanteau of the initials of the Seoul National University (SNU) and the word "puppy".
Process
As the eggs in a female canine are only fertile during the estrus phase of the estrous cycleEstrous cycle
The estrous cycle comprises the recurring physiologic changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian placental females. Estrous cycles start after puberty in sexually mature females and are interrupted by anestrous phases or pregnancies...
, the eggs could only be harvested during a three-week period each year. Due to complexities with removing eggs from canine ovaries the eggs had to be extracted from the oviduct
Oviduct
In non-mammalian vertebrates, the passageway from the ovaries to the outside of the body is known as the oviduct. The eggs travel along the oviduct. These eggs will either be fertilized by sperm to become a zygote, or will degenerate in the body...
, which required constant monitoring to achieve. The nucleus of each egg was replaced with the cell from the ear of the adult dog and then electrified and fused using a chemical reaction
Chemical reaction
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, typically following the input of some type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity...
. The embryos were then transferred to the surrogate dogs. Three of the surrogate mothers became pregnant and two successfully gave birth. Snuppy, the first to be born, survived while the other died two weeks after birth. This process of cloning Snuppy took nearly three years of intensive effort.
Reaction
Snuppy was named as Time Magazine's "Most Amazing Invention" of the year in 2005. Particular recognition was given to the cloning technique used in the process, which Time stated was "embodied by a history-making puppy". Despite numerous labs performing mammalian cloning, they cited that Hwang's team and Snuppy were "extraordinary". The experiment was criticised by Robert KlitzmanRobert Klitzman
Robert Klitzman is an American psychiatrist and bioethicist.He attended Princeton University, where he studied with Clifford Geertz. He then worked for Dr. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who had received the Nobel Prize for work on Kuru, a prion disease...
, director of Columbia University's Masters in Bioethics program, who cited that the process raised the question of if humans are "just a mass of cells and biological processes?" Hwang himself criticised the process, stating that it did not bring science any closer to human cloning
Human cloning
Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The ethics of cloning is an extremely controversial issue...
and the complexities, coupled with the low success rate (one in 123), did not make it ethical to clone family pets. Ian Wilmut
Ian Wilmut
Sir Ian Wilmut, OBE FRS FMedSci FRSE is an English embryologist and is currently Director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic...
, the scientist behind the successful cloning of Dolly the sheep, said that the successful cloning of Snuppy proved that any mammal could be cloned in the correct environments and that a global ban on human cloning needed to be quickly implemented because of this. The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club is a kennel club based in London and Aylesbury, United Kingdom.The Kennel Club registration system divides dogs into seven breed groups. The Kennel Club Groups are: Hound, Working, Terrier, Gundog, Pastoral, Utility and Toy...
criticised the entire concept of dog cloning, on the grounds that their mission is to "To promote in every way the general improvement of dogs" and no improvement can occur if replicas are being created.
Controversy
Between late 2005–2006 Hwang was accused of a series of misconducts. The first allegations related to his work prior to Snuppy; the claim that he had successfully cloned a human embryo. The charges alleged Hwang had paid for egg donations and that some of eggs came from his employees, which constitute serious breaches of the code of bioethicsBioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
. It was later found that photographs he published did not depict what was suggested and that most of the stem-cell lines he claimed to have created were not clones at all. This brought serious doubts onto the validity of Snuppy, which Hwang consistently claimed was a genuine clone. Hwang hired HumanPass Inc., a Korean DNA lab to investigate Snuppy, who found that Snuppy was authentic. The findings by HumanPass were dismissed on the grounds that they were employed by Hwang, and a panel at the Seoul National University ordered their own investigation. The investigation found that, despite his fabrications in previous projects, Hwang's research related to Snuppy was accurate and Snuppy was a clone of the adult Afghan hound. As a result of his forgeries, Hwang was indicted for fraud and dismissed from the university.
Subsequent developments
After Hwang Woo-Suk was dismissed from the university, veterinary professor Lee Byung-ChunYi Byeong-cheon
Yi Byeong-cheon , is the veterinary professor at Seoul National University responsible for the ₩300 million KRW "Toppy" dog cloning program. Yi is a former aide to Hwang Woo-suk, a pioneer in the field with the "Snuppy" clone, who fell from grace after his stem cell research turned out to have been...
took over leadership of the team behind Snuppy. In 2008, Snuppy became involved in the first known successful breeding between cloned canines, after sperm taken from Snuppy was used to artificially inseminate two cloned females, which resulted in the birth of 10 puppies. Nine of the puppies survived. The SNU team, under Lee, have gone on to successfully clone over 30 dogs and five wolves. After successfully breeding the cloned wolves, Lee claimed that the ability to breed cloned canines makes it possible for working dog
Working dog
A working dog refers to a canine working animal, i.e., a type of dog that is not merely a pet but learns and performs tasks to assist and/or entertain its human companions, or a breed of such origin...
s which are usually sterilised before training, such as sniffer dogs and guide dog
Guide dog
Guide dogs are assistance dogs trained to lead blind and visually impaired people around obstacles.Although the dogs can be trained to navigate various obstacles, they are partially color blind and are not capable of interpreting street signs...
s, to reproduce. SNU, which claims to own the patent for the process used to clone Snuppy, formed a license agreement with RNL Bio, a commercial pet cloning company. Hwang entered into a partnership with RNL Bio's competitor, BioArts International, which caused an on-going legal battle into who owns the patent rights. RNL completed the first commercial cloning in August 2008.
The world's first cloned sniffer dogs (all of which are named Toppy
Toppy
Toppy is the name of the world's first cloned working dogs. They are seven Labrador Retriever clones, and they were born in late 2007 to three surrogate mothers...
) were put to work by South Korean customs in July 2009.