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China unveils gene technology to create hyper-muscular test-tube dogs
The dogs, which are test tube bred in a lab, have twice the muscle mass of their natural counterparts and are considerably stronger and faster.
The canine genome has been especially difficult to engineer and replicate – but its close similarity to the human genome means it has long been the prize of geneticists.
Now the Chinese success has led to fears the same technology could be used to create weaponised super-humans
The Chinese researchers first self-bred cloned dog was named Little Long Long.
The beagle puppy, one of 27, was genetically engineered by ‘deleting’ a gene called myostatin, giving it double the muscle mass of a normal beagle.
The advance genetic editing technology has been touted as a breakthrough which could herald the dawn of ‘superbreeds’, which could be stronger, faster, better at running and hunting.
The Chinese official line is that the dogs could potentially be deployed to frontline service to assist police officers.
Dr Lai Liangxue, researcher at Guangzhou institute of biological medicine and health, said: "This is a breakthrough, marking China as only the second country in the world to independently master dog-somatic clone technology, after South Korea."
Some 65 embryos were ‘edited’, and from that 27 were born, with Little Long Long the only one who was created without the myostatin gene. Myostatin is known to control muscle size in humans.
Dogs are one of the hardest animals to clone, with only South Korea thought to have successfully created a clone in the past.
As well as the enhancements, researchers said in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology some dogs will be bred with DNA mutations in a bid to help medical research, including some which mimic Parkinson’s.
Dr Lai added: "The goal of the research is to explore an approach to the generation of the new disease dog models for biomedical research.
"Dogs are very close to humans in terms of metabolic, physiological and anatomical characteristics."
But some have criticised the experiments, citing ethical concerns.
Mr King said: “This is the way its likely to proceed if the law is changed, first of all they will use it for medical purposes, most likely to treat a genetic condition.
“In terms of genetic engineering we will be seeing this more and more.”
There are also fears that, as well as medical, tinkering with genetics could also lead to a rise in designer or novelty pets.
Dr Lai said his team have no intentions to breed the bulked up beagles as pets.
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