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Title: The Boxing Day miracle of the cloned puppy
Source:
UK Telegraph
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci ... racle-of-the-cloned-puppy.html
Published: Dec 26, 2015
Author: Patrick Sawer, and Camilla Turner, video
Post Date: 2015-12-26 16:49:52 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 638
Comments: 1
British couple witness birth of the first of two new puppies in South Korea as result of their dead pet being cloned in groundbreaking procedure It was a miracle of science which put a smile back onto the faces of Laura Jacques and her partner Richard Remde. Six months ago the couple were left devastated when their beloved boxer dog Dylan died of a heart attack at the age of eight, after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. One of the cloned puppies But yesterday they received the first of two new puppies as a result of their dead pet being cloned in a groundbreaking procedure. Ms Jacques, 29, and Mr Remde, 43, from Skipton, North Yorkshire, became the first British couple to take advantage of the cloning process pioneered by the South Korea biotech firm Sooam. Dylan had already been dead for 12 days when the couple managed to get a viable skin sample to the company. Scientists warned them that the technique, which costs £67,000 per procedure, had never worked on dogs who had been dead for more than five days, but against the odds the it was a success, producing not just one but two puppy embryos. A scan shows the foetus of one of the cloned puppies The first puppy was born to a surrogate mother yesterday, watched anxiously by Ms Jaques, a dog walker, and Mr Remde, who runs a building company. The second is due to be born on Tuesday [DEC 29] As the newborn puppy was rubbed clean by veterinary staff Ms Jacques turned to her partner and said: “The noises just make your heart melt don’t they?” She added: “After they got him out I still couldn’t quite believe it had happened. But once he started making noises I knew it was real. Even as a puppy of just a few minutes old I can’t believe how much he looks like Dylan. All the colourings and patterns on his body are in exactly the same places as Dylan had them.” Mr Remde, said: “I was much more overwhelmed with emotion at the birth than I expected to be.” The male puppy has been named Chance, after a character in Ms Jacques’ favourite film, Disney’s Homeward Bound. The second puppy is expected to be named Shadow, after another character in the film. This is the first time that anyone has had a dead pet cloned. Last year Rebecca Smith, 29, from west London won a competition organised by Sooam to have her elderly daschund Winnie cloned. However her ‘clone mother’ was still alive. The puppy, named Mini Winnie was born in March 2014. Ms Jacques said in a recent interview: “It is a controversial topic and there will be people who don’t agree with it but there will be loads of people that would love to be able to do it” Speaking of Dylan’s death, she said: “When it happened I was in total shock, I couldn’t feel my limbs. I had pins and needles everywhere. I didn’t know how I would be able to cope, I thought I would have to throw myself off a bridge or something.” The couple initially decided to store samples of Dylan’s DNA with Sooam. The firm provide a kit to take a biopsy from the abdomen and Mr Remde travelled to South Korean in person to deliver it. “We got all the cells packaged up and I booked a flight for him and he flew out the next morning,” said Ms Jaques, who owns another four dogs and 11 other animals at her home. “Just knowing they were there and knowing I could have another genetically copy of Dylan that my mind at rest.” But the first samples failed and by the time the second biopsy arrived it was long past the usual cut off point for successful cloning. However the scientists at Sooam decided to go ahead and push the boundaries of the technique. The couple still keep Dylan in their freezer while they renovate their garden and are planning to bury him in a special area once it is completed. “I find it embarrassing telling people that I’ve got my dog in the freezer, but I have got a valid reason,” added Ms Jaques Mr Remde said: “We are a bit animal mad. We don’t go out socialising much, we don’t go out drinking.” The first mammal to be cloned was Dolly the sheep, who was born in Edinburgh in 1996. Dogs were first cloned in South Korea in 2005, by Sooam Biotech scientist Dr Woo Suk Hwang. Since then the company has produced around 700 cloned dogs so far but this is the first time that puppies will have been born from DNA samples which have been so degraded. To make a clone, scientists take a donor egg from a female dog and remove the nucleus holding the genetic material which gives an animal its characteristics and personality. Dylan’s DNA was then placed into the egg which was given electric shocks to trigger cell division. The egg was then implanted into a surrogate female dog. “This is the first case we have had where cells have been taken from a dead dog after a very long time,” said David Kim, a scientist at Sooam. “Hopefully it will allow us to extend the time after death that we can take cells for cloning.” However some experts believe that the procedure could lead to animals with much shorter life-spans and a host of health problems. The RSPCA warned that there were serious ethical and welfare concerns with cloning. “There is also a body of evidence that cloned animals frequently suffer physical ailments such as tumours, pneumonia and abnormal growth patterns,” said spokesman. There are no regulations on the cloning of pets, though the cloning of human beings is illegal, and in August the European parliament voted to outlaw the cloning of farm animals. 
Ms Jacques with Dylan the dog 
Dylan the boxer
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#1. To: cranky (#0)
Great! In years to come they will have 10 dogs in the freezer who have all died from heart attacks.
“I find it embarrassing telling people that I’ve got my dog in the freezer, but I have got a valid reason,”
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