Snuppy (

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

: 스너피 a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsSNU" and "puppy"; April 24, 2005–May 2015) was an

Afghan hound The Afghan Hound is a hound that is distinguished by its thick, fine, silky coat and its tail with a ring curl at the end. The breed is selectively bred for its unique features in the cold mountains of Afghanistan. Its local name is ( ps, تاژ ...

, the first dog clone. The puppy was created using a

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

from an ear from an adult Afghan hound and involved 123 surrogate mothers, of which only two produced pups (Snuppy being the sole survivor). The Department of Theriogenology and Biotechnology at

Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is largely considered the most prestigious university in South Korea; it is one of the three " ...

, which cloned Snuppy, was led by Woo Suk Hwang. 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. In 2017, 4 clones of Snuppy were made by Sooam, and were the first clones made of a cloned dog, to investigate potential health effects of cloning.

History

After

Dolly the sheep Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) was a female Finnish Dorset sheep and the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was cloned by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, using the process of nuclear transfer from a ...

was cloned in 1996, scientists had managed to clone numerous other animals, including cats, cows,

gaur The gaur (''Bos gaurus''; ), also known as the Indian bison, is a bovine native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986. The global population was estimated at a maximum of 21,000 m ...

, horses, mice, mules, pigs, rabbits and rats but had been unsuccessful in cloning a dog due to the problematic task of maturing a canine

ovum The egg cell, or ovum (plural ova), is the female reproductive cell, or gamete, in most anisogamous organisms (organisms that reproduce sexually with a larger, female gamete and a smaller, male one). The term is used when the female gamete i ...

in an artificial environment. After several failed attempts by other scientists, Woo Suk Hwang, a lead researcher at

, created 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 Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

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 A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words

Process

As the eggs in a female canine are only fertile during the

estrus The estrous cycle (, originally ) is the set of recurring physiological changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian therian females. Estrous cycles start after sexual maturity in females and are interrupted by anestrous ...

phase of the

estrous cycle The estrous cycle (, originally ) is the set of recurring physiological changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian therian females. Estrous cycles start after sexual maturity in females and are interrupted by anestro ...

, the eggs could only be harvested during a three-week period each year. Due to complexities with removing eggs from canine

ovaries The ovary is an organ in the female reproductive system that produces an ovum. When released, this travels down the fallopian tube into the uterus, where it may become fertilized by a sperm. There is an ovary () found on each side of the body. T ...

the eggs had to be extracted from the

oviduct The oviduct in mammals, is the passageway from an ovary. In human females this is more usually known as the Fallopian tube or uterine tube. The eggs travel along the oviduct. These eggs will either be fertilized by spermatozoa to become a zygote, o ...

, 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 A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions of electrons in the forming and breaking ...

. The embryos were then transferred to the surrogate dogs. Three of the

surrogate mother Surrogacy is an arrangement, often supported by a legal agreement, whereby a woman agrees to delivery/labour for another person or people, who will become the child's parent(s) after birth. People may seek a surrogacy arrangement when pregnan ...

s became pregnant and two 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 ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

'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 hailed the achievements of Hwang's team as "extraordinary". The experiment was criticized by

Robert Klitzman Robert Klitzman (born July 1, 1958) is an American psychiatrist and bioethicist. Biography Early life Robert Klitzman was born on July 1, 1958. He attended Princeton University, where he studied with Clifford Geertz. He then worked for Dr. Daniel ...

, director of Columbia University's Masters in Bioethics program, who said that the process raised the question of whether humans are "just a mass of cells and biological processes?" Hwang himself criticized the process, stating that it did not bring science any closer to

human cloning Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy (or clone) of a human. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning, which is the reproduction of human cells and tissue. It does not refer to the natural concept ...

and the complexities, coupled with the low success rate (one in 123), did not make it ethical to clone family pets.

Ian Wilmut Sir Ian Wilmut, OBE FRS -- FMedSci FRSE (born 7 July 1944) is an English embryologist and Chair of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 ...

, 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 ("KC") is the official kennel club of the United Kingdom. It is the oldest recognised kennel club in the world. Its role is to oversee various canine activities including dog shows, dog agility and working trials. It also oper ...

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 incidents of misconduct. 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 the eggs came from his employees, which would constitute serious breaches of the code of

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, me ...

. 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 about 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.

Developments

Veterinary professor

Byeong Chun Lee Yi Byeong-cheon (Hangeul: 이병천, also spelled Lee Byeong-chun, born January 5, 1965) is the veterinary professor at Seoul National University responsible for the ₩300 million KRW (about US$240,000) "Toppy" dog cloning program in 2007. Yi is ...

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 clone over 30 dogs and five wolves. SNU, which claimed 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 ongoing legal battle into who owns the patent rights although Bio Arts withdrew from dog cloning in 2009. RNL completed the first commercial cloning in August 2008 but ran into financial trouble in 2013. The world's first cloned

sniffer dog A detection dog or sniffer dog is a dog that is trained to use its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, currency, blood, and contraband electronics such as illicit mobile phones. The sense most used by d ...

s (all of which are named

Toppy Toppy is the name given to seven cloned Labrador Retriever dogs, born in late 2007 to three surrogate mothers. They were the world's first cloned working dogs, and were used by the Korea Customs Service. Each Toppy is a clone of a successful s ...

) were put to work by South Korean customs in July 2009. Supporters of Hwang founded a company called Sooam Biotech where Hwang developed proprietary techniques based on a licence from ViaGen's subsidiary Start Licensing (which owns the original Dolly patent) and created cloned dogs for owners whose dogs had died, charging $100,000 a time Sooam Biotech was reported to have cloned 700 dogs by 2015 and to be producing 500 cloned embryos of various species a day in 2016.

Death

Snuppy died in May 2015 at the age of 10.

References