“Chinese Firm Clones Gene-Edited Dog in Bid to Treat Cardiovascular Disease”, Serenitie Wang, Matt Rivers, Shunhe Wang2017-12-25 (dog cloning, gene editing)⁠:

With his black, brown and white fur, Longlong looks like most beagles. But the puppy has been sick with a blood-clotting disorder since birth—exactly what scientists in China had wanted. The pup was cloned from Apple, a different dog whose genome was CRISPR edited to develop the disease atherosclerosis. With that genetic information now coded in, the disease—a leading cause of stroke and heart sickness—was passed along to Longlong, who scientists will use to study the condition and its possible cures.

Longlong’s creator, Beijing-based biotech company Sinogene, said Longlong is the world’s first dog cloned from a gene-edited donor. With Longlong’s birth, the scientists claimed that China had matched South Korea as a leader in canine cloning technology. According to Feng, Longlong’s birth was the first time scientists had combined two cutting-edge bio-technologies.

…To date, researchers say the dogs haven’t shown any symptoms of the disorder but they are closely monitoring their health, said Mi Jidong, General Manager of Sinogene. Drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases are already being tested on the healthy animals, he added.

…Zhao Jianping, vice manager of Sinogene, says the company’s success in dog cloning is about 50%. Two surrogate dogs out of 4 gave birth to 3 cloned puppies. The other two did not get pregnant. Apple’s birth followed unsuccessful attempts with 5 puppies whose genes were modified but did not test positive for atherosclerosis.

…Feng added that making their gene-edited dogs more accessible could revolutionize research in this area. The earlier method to create atherosclerosis in dogs was to force feed the animals with meals high in sugar and fat until symptoms appeared. The current technique of gene editing and cloning involves less suffering, he said.