Cloning

Cloning 1. Cloning is the production of multiple, identical offspring. A clone is an animal that is genetically identical to its donor "parent". We now know that this can be achieved using cells derived from a microscopic embryo, a fetus, or from an adult animal. Cloning from adult animals was introduced to the public in 1997 when scientists announced the birth of Dolly, the first animal cloned in this way. There have now been hundreds of clones produced from skin cells taken from adult sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and mice. The real key to cloning an adult animal is the ability to reprogram the skin cell nucleus and cause it to begin developing as if it was a newly fertilized egg. Cloning requires specialized microsurgery tools and involves five basic steps: 1. Enucleation of the recipient egg 2. Transfer of the donor cell into the recipient egg 3. Fusion of the donor cell to the recipient egg 4. Culturing the resulting cloned embryo in the incubator 5. Transferring the developing embryo into the reproductive tract of a surrogate mother 2. A compound microscope with a left and right hand micromanipulator is required in the cloning procedure. The microscope magnifies the specimen and the micromanipulators reduce the technician's hand egg, cell, donor, animal, skin, membrane, nucleus, cloned, recipient, embryo, surrogate, genetic, placed, pipette, material, cloning, clone, cells, using, tract, tool, stage, species, reproductive, place, now, microscope, micromanipulator, identical, fusion, enucleation, enucleated, electrical, each, adult, transferred