Cloning and Genetic Manipulation - Page 1

Cloning

We are getting close to the time where we can successfully clone our dogs.  Would you support cloning of the Champions assuming no health risks?   Would you adopt a Batu clone?  Should they be produced at all?  Which dog would you like to be able to work? 

Genetic Manipulation

Our lifetimes will probably bring the ability to manipulate the genes of our dogs.  The set of alleles that defines the hips of a dog can be replaced by alleles that create great hips.  You choose the drive of your dog, I suppose at some point you could design the perfect German Shepherd.  Besides looking unnatural what would that dog look like?

I do see something like this occurring in the future, but I doubt that it will be just for the perfection of the GSD when we have the ability to choose and/or design a genetically-superior dog that will have a predictable quality of life.

Moreso, If and when this occurs I see this for the dogs used in military reconnaissance, patrol, battle, and rescue purposes first. Once perfected, such a dog could be produced and trained in a very repeatable fashion. The neccessity of a stud male or brood female of the highest quality may not be absolutely needed anymore, as genetic manipulation could repair any "faults".

I do not like to sound like a conspiracy theorist living in a mental state of science fiction fantasy, but I do think that scientifically-induced eugenics will become somewhat of a reality, and perhaps a crime of the future. Of course, humanity has tried this many times in the past but with results limited by the resources to continue wars of massive size.

I do see genetic manipulation as something that will be applied to the dog of the future, just as I see it applied in a very limited degree (at least at this time) to human children. We all know that as this technology advances, it will become much more accessible.

And I agree-what would this dog look like? Who would he look like? Could one choose the Ursus modell and have a dog with the designation of being "Ursus von Batu M/N 001, S/N 0000001-revision a?

Interesting, I agree.

Bob-O

Cloning has been done already with pets, AFAIK. I remember seeing a picture of a cat that had been cloned. However, it was NOT identical in colour and markings to the original. Apparently, the environment in the womb of the host mother, or possibly other unknown factors have something to do with how the genes are expressed.

The first known cloned animal  was Dolly, the sheep. Didn't she age and die prematurely?

Okay, I was wrong about Dolly: Wikipedia says:

On February 15, 2003, it was announced that Dolly had been euthanised because of a progressive lung disease and crippling arthritis. A Finn Dorset such as Dolly would have had a life expectancy of around 12 - 15 years, but Dolly only lived to 6 years of age. Some believe the reason for this is because Dolly was actually born genetically 6 years old, the same age as her donor at the time that her genetic data was taken from her. Surprisingly, Dolly did not die because of being a clone, an autopsy confirmed she had Ovine Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma (Jaagsiekte), a fairly common disease of sheep caused by the retrovirus JSRV. Roslin scientists stated that they did not think there was a connection with Dolly being a clone, and that other sheep on the farm had similar ailments. Such lung diseases are especially a danger for sheep kept indoors, as Dolly had to sleep indoors for security reasons.

But I was right about the spots on the cloned animals sometimes being distrubuted differently:

Denniston and other pet cloning executives say they always present potential clients with several caveats. For instance, they remind them that the clone will not be the same pet, but rather a completely new animal with identical genes. It will definitely not have the same “memories,” and may not even have exactly the same temperament. Plus, if the original animal is spotted, as seen in the case of CC, who had a calico donor, but is not herself a calico, the clone’s coat pattern may not even be the same as the original pet’s.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3076926/

 Hi,

I am posting to you privately because the topic is way over the heads of most of the people who post here and it will degenerate into something else.

As you have already found out, Dolly was euthanized and it had nothing to do with her aging prematurely etc., as was initially proposed. Also a dog and cats and many other species of animals have now been cloned. The technology is leaping ahead very quickly. Just in the past month there have been several very important advances in the field, including the cloning of monkeys. Clearly, at some time in the future the technology will be used, at the very least, to allow infertile couples, for example, to have children. The real promise of the technology however is in therapeutic cloning, where tissues, organs, blood etc. may be created by cells that are able to be placed into the body of the SAME person who donated the cells in the first place. Sadly, most people only think of cloning in the realm of science fiction, where the evil clone is created by the mad/evil scientist.

There is an important point however that must be made. Genetic determinism is what most people think when they know anything about cloning. This means that they think the clone will be exactly as the donor from which the cloning originated. This is completely incorrect and does not allow for what we know to be the considerable contribution of the environment. And yes, there may be some changes expressed differently, such as spots on a coat etc. Therefore, no human clone, no animal clone, including a dog, would EVER be the same as the original. Further, remember that the clone would be born as an infant of whatever species. Most importantly, it would not have the same personality or temperament as the original.

When one talks of correcting genes that code for some health issue, such as EPI, von Willibrands' or even hips or elbow dysplasia, what one is talking about is genetic engineering, not necessarily cloning.

I hope this helps. Just wrote a major paper and spent all semester long on this very subject. Someday I hope all species can be helped by such technology. But I also hope that narcissists will realize it is not a useful technology and that all will realize that one will not be able to reproduce that which they might have lost through death.

Merry Christmas.

Sharyn

One possible use of this technology that I can see will be to determine the role environment and genetics play in different types of cancers. Take a cell from an animal that has developed cancer, clone the animal, raise the clone in an environment where it is protected from know triggers for cancer, and see if it, too, develops the disease.

My biggest concern with cloning purebred animals would be potential loss of genetic diversity. If everyone was making and showing, for example, Ursus clones, the gene pool would go down the tubes. It would be the ultimate ' inbreeding'.

OTOH, if everyone is showing Urus clones, why bother having dog shows at all? The only thing different would be their scores in Schutzhund, and the handler's ability to show them to their best advantage.

It's a very interesting area to speculate about. Several of Rob Sawyer's science fiction books have dealt with genetics and cloning. I recommend that anyone interested in this area give them a read. He also delves into the ethics of these experiments without being preachy or moralistic or putting a religious slant on the issues.

Hodie, if your really want to take this off the boards, go to the top of the page and press the PM button. I havent' taught biology for a number of years, so I'm a bit out of the loop on current developments.

Would you clone a dog that you loved?  Reminds me a little of pet cemetary...

But I was right about the spots on the cloned animals sometimes being distrubuted differently:

Ah yes..... the researchers didn't really choose a good coat pattern if their intention was to demonstrate identical cloning.  The tortoiseshell (or calico) pattern is unusual in that it's sex linked with the specific gene on the X chromosome only.  The female tortie has both alleles for black and yellow pigment and activation is switched between the two chromosomes more or less randomly and so not under genetic control.  This results in random patterning of black and yellow patches, and very unlikely that you would ever get two identical torties, even in clones.

The difference in white marking is a bit different and is partly under genetic control but variation will still occur as pigment cell migration, which determines the extent of pigmented area, is partly random.

We don't have any X linked coat colours in dogs but we do have other random patterns apart from white spotting.  The asymmetric merle and brindle I would expect to express differently in clones.  The other patterns such as the Agoutis; sable, tanpoint, black, I would expect to be more or less identical in clones.  Minor differences could occur due to environmental factors such as climate and diet.