Cloning is the process of creating a biological organism that is genetically identical to its parent. there are two main techniques used in animal cloning today. Cloning is not new to the world, humans have been cloning plants from clippings for hundreds of years. in 1960 there was the first real advancement in cloning as small animals were successfully cloned. In 1997 the first sheep was successfully cloned and this shocked the whole scientific world as the prospect of cloning larger and more complex mammals maybe even humans was now thought to be a possibility.
There are two main methods for cloning live birthed mammals. The first method being somatic cell nuclear transfer; this technique is performed from obtaining a donor egg from the desired species and then removing the nucleus which eliminates the original DNA. Next, the enucleated egg is injected with the nucleus of a somatic cell (adult body cell) taken from the animal that is to be cloned. Following this, the egg with the implanted nucleus is stimulated with electricity in a lab setting and with good conditions will begin to divide several times until a blastocyst is formed and can be implanted into a surrogate mothers uterus. With proper care and procedure life could continue to flourish for the cloned cell until it reaches the state of a natural birth (Scientific and Medical facts of Human Reproductive Cloning).
the second method of human reproductive cloning is called embryo splitting. Embryo splitting begins with the process of in vitro fertilization which is the union of sperm and an egg outside the woman's body (in a lab setting) to form a zygote. The zygote will then begin to divide itself via mitosis into two and then four identical cells. At this point the cells can be seperated and allowed to grown into their own individual, but seperate blastocysts (preimplantation embryos). The big difference with this method is that each blastocysts was produced from two individual germ cells, the sperm from the father and the egg from the mother, This means each clone has two parents but is genetically identical to the other cells it was split from.
Human cloning, although not legal in most major countries, is thought to be possible. Now that mammals have been successfully cloned it would be naive to assume humans are above the technology, keeping in mind that humans have an extremely complicated gene sequence that is responsible for out relatively large brains. It could be expected that the failure rate in cloning attempts would rise with human cloning and there would likely need to be further advancements in the field before human cloning would be a practical task.
the second method of human reproductive cloning is called embryo splitting. Embryo splitting begins with the process of in vitro fertilization which is the union of sperm and an egg outside the woman's body (in a lab setting) to form a zygote. The zygote will then begin to divide itself via mitosis into two and then four identical cells. At this point the cells can be seperated and allowed to grown into their own individual, but seperate blastocysts (preimplantation embryos). The big difference with this method is that each blastocysts was produced from two individual germ cells, the sperm from the father and the egg from the mother, This means each clone has two parents but is genetically identical to the other cells it was split from.
Human cloning, although not legal in most major countries, is thought to be possible. Now that mammals have been successfully cloned it would be naive to assume humans are above the technology, keeping in mind that humans have an extremely complicated gene sequence that is responsible for out relatively large brains. It could be expected that the failure rate in cloning attempts would rise with human cloning and there would likely need to be further advancements in the field before human cloning would be a practical task.