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The world¡¯s first cloned dog Snuppy celebrated its first birthday on Monday. The Afghan hound was born on April 24, 2005 and paraded before the world press, with a paper describing its creation published in the journal Nature in August that year. Snuppy became embroiled in controversy when it became known that its creator Hwang Woo-suk faked ground-breaking stem cell research, but its creation was the only one of Hwang¡¯s achievements still left standing after the house of cards came tumbling down. Nature confirmed this in its March issue this year.
Snuppy weighed 530g and was 12 cm tall at birth; it now weighs 29 kg and measures 80cm. Even though the dog is only a year old, it is said to be 22 years old in human terms.
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Snuppy, the first cloned dog, appears before the press to celebrate his first birthday at Seoul National University in Seoul on Monday. It was cloned by the disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk and his team./Newsis
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For its birthday, the dog enjoyed a steamed rice cake, a chocolate cake, an ice cream cake with a candle and, perhaps most of all, doggy snacks decorating the table set up in front of Seoul National University¡¯s Veterinary College.
But while hundreds of reporters gathered when Snuppy was first shown to the press last year, a mere dozen showed up for the birthday party. Prof. Lee Byeong-chun, the first listed author of the paper on Snuppy¡¯s cloning, was unable to attend as he has been suspended over his involvement in the faking of Hwang¡¯s other research and was reduced to watching from his lab window. Hwang, who has been fired, was also absent. ¡°As far as I know, researchers are doing the minimum research to prevent their capabilities from being reduced,¡± Lee said. He only added, ¡°If we can produce good results later on, we may be able to ask for support, but we¡¯re not in a position to do that now¡±
Prof. Kim Min-kyu said the plan was to clone a female dog and see whether she and Snuppy, which is male, can reproduce, but the team lacks funding and finds it difficult to proceed. ¡°The University of Minnesota in the U.S. offered to join hands in carrying out research to treat dogs, which shows that our technological superiority is recognized in the world,¡± Kim said. ¡°It would have been so good to see Snuppy¡¯s friends¡± ? other cloned dogs.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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