7 half-pound mutts become first test-tube puppies in world
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A team of veterinarians, scientists and lab workers gathered around a surrogate hound and watched her give birth to seven half-pound puppies, the first dogs ever conceived in a test tube.
The puppies born July 10 are a mix of beagle, Labrador and cocker spaniel and are now healthy 5-month-olds, Travis said.
In vitro fertilization, the process of fertilizing an egg with sperm outside the body, is widely used to assist human reproduction these days.
[...] IVF efforts with dogs repeatedly failed until now, according to Dr. Pierre Comizzoli, a reproductive physiologist for the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, which works with Cornell.
The lead author, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute doctoral fellow Jennifer Nagashima, said IVF technology in dogs could prove useful in everything from conserving endangered species to removing "deleterious traits from breeds," with research potentially applicable to "models for human disease" as well.