On Wednesday, a group of scientists from Seoul National University unveiled a black and white Afghan hound named Snuppy that is genetically identical to its three-year-old "father."
Snuppy is the result of a process that involved transferring 1,095 canine embryos into 123 surrogate mothers. Only three successful pregnancies occurred. One foetus miscarried but two others were delivered; Snuppy was born on April 24 and his "brother" died from pneumonia after 22 days.
Snuppy is the latest in a series of animal cloning attempts since Dolly, the sheep cloned in 1997. Researchers have since cloned mice, cats, goats, pigs, mules, horses and deer. Dogs, however, are the most challenging of all mammals to clone, because it's difficult to acquire mature eggs. Snuppy's success makes many scientists believe that they have most of the key techniques necessary to clone humans.
The response to Snuppy? Anti-cloning activists are pushing even harder for a worldwide ban on human cloning. "Because this again shows that reproductive cloning is unsafe and inefficient, we call for a worldwide ban on human reproductive cloning, which is also unethical," says Gerald Schatten, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Others feel optimistic that Snuppy's creation brings medicine one step closer to finding breakthrough treatments for currently-incurable human diseases. "Bring me human eggs, the necessary social consensus and legal permission and I can get you your replica within a year," said Park Se-Pill, a senior researcher of Maria Biotech and a top cloning expert.
Many diseases, for example, like diabetes, cancer, heart ailments, and problems in hips and joints, are similar in dogs and humans.
How exactly does cloning help us cure illnesses? I wonder if this isn't just the newest fad out there. I am inclined to think that just because science CAN do something, that doesn't always mean they SHOULD.
Scientists in favor of cloning believe there are numerous ways the technology could help cure illnesses. Cloning could reproduce animals with special qualities, like drug-producing animals or those that could be genetically altered to serve as models for studying human disease. Therapeutic cloning technology could someday be used to produce whole organs from single cells or produce healthy cells that can replace damaged cells in diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Those against cloning believe there are too many moral and ethical issues involved, as well as the risk of viruses or other problems resulting from genetic manipulation.
i think that it is sad that they could do that to dogs and there could have been so many more dogs, but just becuase of someones experiment only 3 survived. that is just cruel and unhuman.
Okay i have a dog and the thought of cloning him would be wierd?
I absolutely love science, but I think it's wrong to clone anything...I do not agree with it whatsoever!
★BRITTANY ☠BONES☠ TODD★
Well, now we can clone dogs with humans expected next. I would like to volunteer all my eggs for the cloning experiment. I could see the headlines now, "Mr. Smith donates eggs for cloning experiment, clones self, now has to pay twice as much income tax as scientists have assured the public that this is indeed him himself."
Seriously though, growing and marketing human flesh for medical treatments poses little social issue, however the cloning of an intelligent being in it's entirity does pose some moral dilemas. Not the least of which would be what will become of the child, how could it live a normal life when everything about it would be constantly monitored or measured and the media would strip the last vestigases of a private life away. We don't have the right to do that to a child, a child is not a commodity to be invested in with returns expected from them. It is true that the cloning process would put an end to many human eggs but birth control and IUD's do that on a daily basis. The question arises, is the clone his own person or is he property, a source of organs perhaps for thge rich who would easily take a life they had bought to extend their own lives. I would not like to be the one making the decisions, no matter what happens there will be those adamantly opposed to a decision. Then there is the cloning of great historical figures, do we now defile graves in search of dna samples that can be made viable or recreated in some laboratory? The expectations of such an individual to be the actual person will totally outweigh the hapless person's chances of building a unique life for his or her self. Much as I would like Einstein to be cloned, others want Hitler yet in so creating we forget that each individual is a product of his time and his environment. Einstein may not be able to follow the theories of science today, Hitler would find a Germany dreading any return to the fascist days so the tragedy of their recreation would most likely be for naught.
I, uh... I don't think most "Mr."s have eggs to donate.
L.A. Dodger Manny Ramirez got busted by Major League Baseball for having female fertility drugs in his system, so maybe things are changing with that bit of human biology.
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