Korea to Clone Drug Sniffing Dogs

SK writes "Scientists at Seoul National University Korea are seeking to commercially clone dogs this year — the world's first attempt to create canine clones for money. Senior researcher Kim Min-kyu at the Seoul-based University is spearheading the efforts based on his team's expertise in cloning dogs. As per Mr. Kim early last month, they signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Customs Service to clone its drug-sniffing dogs. They have already obtained somatic cells of the expensive dogs and will attempt to clone them in July or August to get puppies late this year at the earliest."

Comments

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than cloning, why not take the best sniffers, and breed them? It's cheaper, and given the failure rate of cloning with mammals, a lot more cost effective I'd think.

Re:wtf

[p3d0]

And isn't it possible the offspring will actually improve on the parents?

Re:wtf

[jack455]

Exactly. This is the stupidest idea I ever heard of. (OK maybe not the stupidest.) Sure, they can make more money short-term because it sounds important, but that's only by counting on some people lacking either scientific understanding or common sense being in positions of authority.

Example:
Company A offers specially-bred and _fully-trained_ drug sniffing dogs. They are constantly improving their capabilities and have the fullest potential available.

Company B used technology to make copies of previous generation dogs with drug sniffing capabilities. They are just as capable as Company A's previous animals. Doesn't that sound great?

Cloning might be better applied where you couldn't test an animal's capabilities before they were used. Maybe a one-time operation that killed the dog, but you would know before-hand if a dog can sniff drugs, right?

Re:wtf

[jrob323]

Cloning's better. If you just bred them, you'd lose all the training. Duh.

Re:From a logical point of view

[MajSandwich]

Ah, but what sauce will be served with these dogs?

Re:From a logical point of view

[jimstapleton]

logically? It's a waste of time and money. Old fashioned breeding produces a much higher result rate (multiple puppies per litter, rather than multiple litters to get a viable puppy). Additionally, the results of breeding will be a lot healthier and long lived than those of cloning.

This is simply a 'nifty' factor thing, and is logically a waste, at least for the purpose they are suggesting to use it for.

Scientifically, I think it'll produce a lot of good data. Commercially it'll just produce some ripped-off customers and unhealthy dogs.

What's wrong with selective breeding?

[WIAKywbfatw]

What's wrong with selective breeding? It's proven to work, it's without any real drawbacks, it's cheap and it's easy to do.

Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.

Re:What's wrong with selective breeding?

[kahei]

What's wrong with selective breeding? It's proven to work, it's without any real drawbacks, it's cheap and it's easy to do.


I don't know where all the people in this thread who believe that have come from. It's incredibly hard to do, involving massive amounts of trial and error. By the time you've created a breed of dog that breeds true (i.e. within a certain range of accepted characteristics -- not necessarily always the exact point you want, though) you've usually introduced anything from hip dysplasia to total psychosis. It took hundreds of years to develop Border Collies and even then as anyone who's tried to use them to herd sheep will tell you only about 1 in 4 is really the way they're supposed to be. There's one on my Uncle's farm that doesn't go uphill. Product of centuries of very dedicated breeding, it is, much more than there's time to do for drug dogs.

So no, selective breeding is not simple or easy either in genetic theory or in practice, and it involves a lot of looking after puppies until you are sure they don't have the features you want and only *then* drowning them.

Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.

Sometimes, the 'inspirational poster slogan' approach to solving difficult biological problems is stupid. Actually, that's the case pretty often.

Re:What's wrong with selective breeding?

[Oktober Sunset]

actually, after intense selective breeding, your dogs will be highly inbred, and probably have lots of health problems.

From a factual point of view

[kahei]

factually? Allow me.

Old fashioned breeding produces a much higher result rate (multiple puppies per litter, rather than multiple litters to get a viable puppy).

Old fashioned breeding produces multiple puppies per litter. Some of these puppies will have the attributes you want. Others won't. It will take at least a year to tell which are which. See the problem?

Additionally, the results of breeding will be a lot healthier and long lived than those of cloning.

I'm going to counter that with another made-up gut reaction: The results of breeding will gradually bite your toes off one by one, whereas the results of cloning will deliver you beautiful roses folded from ancient Mongolian silk every year on your birthday.

I mean for heaven's sake man, buck up and make an effort.

Maybe making dogs isn't the point...

[Elemenope]

Perhaps the point is not to create dogs by the time-honored 'most efficient method possible'. Perhaps the point is to highlight the advanced nature of Korea's biotech industry to court foreign interest/investment/prestige and possibly to attract further talent. Cloning dogs may not be the best way to produce dogs, but perfecting mammal cloning techniques (and the undoubtedly several spin-off discoveries and technologies which one would expect to accompany such research) requires some in situ experimentation, I would imagine.

just like cattle

[r00t]

Clone the ones that taste best. This is East Asia you know, and there's nothing wrong with that from a logical point of view. Pigs are smarter than dogs anyway, and we eat those, so it's not as if intelligence would be an issue.

I'll have a Pekingese please, baked with some rosemary. Yummy!