Snuppy, the first cloned dog, has become a father after the world's first successful breeding involving only cloned canines.

The Afghan hound impregnated two cloned bitches of the same breed through artificial insemination.

This is the first time in the world that puppies have been born from cloned parents. One of the 10 puppies which were born between May 14 and 18 died but nine others are healthy.

"This shows the reproductive ability of a cloned dog," Professor Byung-chun Lee said.

Professor Lee's team created Snuppy in 2005 and also produced the world's first cloned wolves. This year he has successfully cloned dogs capable of sniffing out human cancers.

The breeding of cloned dogs"opens the way for cloning sniffer dogs and seeing-eye guide dogs, which usually have to be sterilised for training and lose the ability to reproduce," Lee said.

September 5, 2008
SNU PR Office