Thursday, February 7, 2013

Klondike the Extraordinary Puppy


Klondike the Extraordinary Puppy

If you’re a dog person like I am, you may be excited to hear that they wont be going anywhere any time soon. Biology is advancing every day, and one of its recent successes has caught my eye. One little puppy’s survival and thriving growth has given hope to endangered canines and possibly other types of endangered species as well.

Klondike is a Labrador-beagle mix who was born through the process of cryopreservation, the freezing of tissue. After his beagle  mother was artificially inseminated, the embryos were frozen and one was eventually inserted into his surrogate mother, another beagle. Scientists waited until Klondike was nine months old to announce the success of this process. The puppy doesn’t have any major health problems, and has developed normally so far in his life.

Although neither Labradors nor beagles are endangered, this assisted reproduction technique can most likely be used with species such as the red wolf, one of the world’s most endangered canines. Repopulation of this species is now possible, with Klondike as proof! Female dogs can only give birth once or twice a year, so being able to freeze their embryos and preserve genetic diversity is truly a breakthrough.

Biology is constantly developing in new and amazing ways. Now that scientists have successfully given life to a frozen dog embryo, they may be anticipating the same success for other endangered species. Cryopreservation of embryos is a rather new field in biology, and it will be fascinating to learn which species they will use this technique on next!

Posted by Lindsey Dugas (1).

8 comments:

  1. This post is an excellent example of one of the advances seen in biology. With cryopreservation being a great way of improving output levels from animal breeding and preserving genetic diversity we can now prevent the decline of the extinction or endangerment of many fascinating organism on our planet. With Klondike posing as only one example of life arising from a frozen dog embryo, it is exciting to imagine what other organisms we can and will use this same technology on.
    Posted by Marshall Moini

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  2. It's amazing to think that we could keep an "embryo bank" of a species and thereby prevent it from becoming "truly" extinct. I wonder how long this method would allow the embryos to be cryopreserved?

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    2. Scientists and researchers are still trying to figure this out. Most doctors are sure that eggs can be frozen safely for ten years. Other doctors believe that since they are stored in liquid nitrogen, which stops all biological activity in an egg, these eggs can last indefinitely!


      Lindsey Dugas (1)

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  3. With specific reference to the red wolf what is the advantage of being able to freeze and later re-implant the embryo vs simply use a surrogate in the traditional sense without the cryogenic step?

    Also, how early on in development must the embryos be frozen? Is it a crap shoot as to whether or not they survive (IE water crystallizing in cells sometimes but not others), or is the method consistent and reliable?

    Michael Ball (1)

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  4. I am glad that biology fields are making advances like these in such important fields. Cryogenics, if developed correctly and in the near future could definitely help so many. The medical field could use this technology for organs or surgeries and so could those in the armed forces to prevent casualties and such. How long can current cryogenics last for?

    Nick Mulone

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  5. I was wondering if there had been any other attempts at this type of process or is this the first? If there were others were they successful also or is this the only successful one so far?

    Tonya Sulham

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    1. Cryopreservation has a success rate of 71-79% in humans, and it has also been successful in animals such as elephants and mice. Since animals have different reproductive systems, it is experimental with each species.

      Lindsey Dugas (1)

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