South Korean Researchers Clone a Wolf
by Agence France-Presse
SEOUL (AFP)South Korean scientists who created the world’s first cloned dog said Monday they have cloned two females of an endangered species of wolf.
A team led by Lee Byung-Chun and Shin Nam-Shik, veterinary professors at Seoul National University, said the cloned wolves were born in October 2005.
“They were the world’s first cloned wolves but we decided to disclose our achievement today,” Shin told AFP. “They are healthy and growing well.”
The latest achievement will be published in the international journal Cloning and Stem Cells, he said.
Lee’s team created the world’s first cloned dog, Snuppy, in early 2005 under the stewardship of now-disgraced cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk. So far, the team has cloned one male and three female Afghan hounds.
“The paper lists Hwang as one of the co-authors because he was responsible for the research at the beginning,” Shin said.
Lee’s team sent a related research paper to scientific journals last year but the feat was largely dismissed after much of Hwang’s research work was proved to be bogus.
Hwang was hailed as a national hero until a university inquiry ruled that some of his work on cloning embryonic human stem cells was fake. He is now on trial for fraud, embezzlement, ethical breaches and other charges but has insisted he can still prove he created the first cloned human stem cells.
The wolf clones “may provide a breathrough in increasing the number of endangered species,” Shin said.
Like dogs, wolves are one of the most difficult animals to reproduce, he said.
The wolves, named Snuwolf (Seoul National University wolf) and Snuwolffy, were created by taking the somatic cell from a wolf bred at a zoo in southern Seoul. Fertilised eggs were then transplanted into female dogs that acted as surrogate mothers.