Seoul, Dec. 29 (Reuters): A South Korean investigation panel looking into the works of a disgraced scientist said on Thursday it could not yet reach a conclusion on whether his team produced the world’s first cloned dog.

A few months after Hwang grabbed headlines with the May paper on the tailored stem cells, he was back in the spotlight again.

This time it was with an Afghan hound puppy named Snuppy, which Hwang claimed was the world’s first cloned dog.

A DNA testing laboratory in Seoul said on Thursday it concluded Snuppy was an actual clone based on blood tests it conducted.

“Our testing indicates Snuppy is a cloned dog,” said Lee Seung-Jae, the chief executive of DNA testing laboratory Humanpass Inc.

Lee said by telephone that Hwang had approached the laboratory in late November to conduct tests on Snuppy.

The laboratory is not a part of the investigation into Hwang’s work being conducted by the Seoul National University panel.

But an investigation panel member said separately the process of verifying a cloned dog is more difficult than it may seem.

Dogs are considered one of the most difficult animals to clone because of their reproductive cycle.

Snuppy, short for Seoul National University puppy, was born on April 24 after a normal, full-term pregnancy in a yellow Labrador surrogate mother.