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Trent Consultants News: By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY. Scientists have cloned the best friend of man for the first time, creating a genetic duplicate of a dog of 3-year Afghan male South Korean scientists reported Wednesday.

Trent Consultants News: The puppy was born in April in his mother surrogate, a Labrador retriever. His name: Snuppy, short for Seoul National University puppy.

The team of scientists here that the cloned dog, led by Hwang Woo Suk, is the same as the first human cloned embryonic stem cells last year. Their achievement is reported in the journal Nature.

Researchers have cloned other animals, but the cloning of dogs posed a particular challenge. The difficulties have alarmed some animal advocates and researchers.

The 1095 team created cloned embryos from skin cells of the ear of the dog and transfer them to two years in 123 dogs. Only three pregnancies resulted: one ended in miscarriage, one puppy died after 22 days of pneumonia, and the final product Snuppy.

Because dogs, unlike other mammals, ovulation of immature oocytes, the team had to surgically remove eggs of anesthetized dogs in heat. Only mature eggs capable of cloning, in which a skin cell is inserted into a hollow egg, and the resulting combination is jolted with electricity to start dividing like a normal embryo.

The objective is to promote primary care, including veterinary medicine, understanding the causes of the disease and to accelerate stem cell clinic, "report co-author Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh said.

the cloning of a dog has been controversial because it has long been the target of some who want to replace the pet beloved in this way. Genetic Savings & Clone, a California company that sells cat cloned for $ 32,000, announced in advance in a statement. "We expect to provide cloning services for owners of dogs except around the world."

Company officials said they expect to clone a dog in the trade within a year with eggs collected sterilization procedures in veterinary clinics.

But the biologist Martin Stephens of the U.S. Humane Society says: "We have serious concerns." He noted that millions of dogs awaiting adoption in shelters in the nation.

"Neither (the results), neither we, the support of animal cloning," Schatten said.

The American Anti-Vivisection Society, a group of animal rights, issued a statement calling for the regulation of animal cloning, saying: "The puppy only survivor is facing uncertain futures, like other cloned animals have been plagued by health problems resulting in their premature death.

The cloning of Dolly the sheep has renewed calls for a worldwide ban on human reproductive cloning.

"The successful cloning of an increasing number of species confirms the general impression that it would be possible to clone any mammalian species, including humans," said Ian Wilmut The Associated Press. Biologist Reproduction at the University of Edinburgh Dolly nearly a decade ago.

Dolly died prematurely in 2003 after developing cancer and arthritis.

The dog cloning team tried to distance his work from commercial cloning. "This is to advance stem cell science and medicine, not to the dogs by this natural method," Schatten said to the AP.

Other scientists praised the South Korean team. "I think it's incredible, just a statement of perseverance on their part," said Mark Westhusin of Texas A & M University

Like Dolly and other predecessors, Snuppy was created using a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT.

Scientists transfer genetic material from an adult cell nucleus into an egg donor whose nucleus - with its genetic material - has been removed. The reconstructed egg holding the DNA of the donor cell is treated with chemicals or electric current stimulation.