Chinese Successfully Clone a Canine in Bid to find Cure for Heart Disease
Earlier this year, experts at Sino Gene, a biotech company based in Beijing, revealed a fluffy beagle called Long Long to the world. Long Long is a clone of Apple, who was created by Sino Gene using cloning and gene knockout techniques.
With Longlong’s birth, the scientists claimed that China had matched South Korea as a leader in canine cloning technology.
As heart-warming and endearing that might sound, it really is a sob story.
Apple’s genome was originally edited so as to induce atherosclerosis in the animal and further aid scientists to advance the battle against the disease in humans. “Dogs share the most inheritable diseases with human beings, which makes them the best disease models to study,” Feng Chong, technical director at Sinogene, said.
With the genetic information now coded in, the disease was passed along to Longlong, who scientists will use to study the condition and its possible cures.
Atherosclerosis- hardening and narrowing of the
arteries- silently and slowly blocks arteries, putting blood flow at risk. Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death globally, killing 17.7 million people in 2015, according to the WHO. And atherosclerosis affects more than 15.8 million people in the US alone.Longlong marks the first time scientists combined a somatic cell cloning technology ─ the method used to clone Dolly, the sheep ─ and a gene-editing tool, Feng said.
To date, researchers say the dogs haven’t shown any symptoms of the disorder but they are closely monitoring their health, said Mi Jidong, General Manager of Sinogene. Drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases are already being tested on the healthy animals, he added.
However, beyond concerns about the morality of the science, scientists at the Sinogene lab believe their work aids the future of pharmaceutical development and biomedical research. The company is planning to produce more cloned dogs like Longlong. Sinogene has successfully cloned two more puppies from Apple and plans to clone more in the future.
The company’s deputy general manager Zhao Jianping hopes to clone police dogs and family pets. He said several pet owners have already come forward seeking to clone their beloved dogs.
“We hope to popularize [pet cloning] for the public,” he said.