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A sheep cloning how-to, more or less
February 24, 1997
Web posted at: 8:50 p.m. ESTFrom Correspondent Ann Kellan
ATLANTA (CNN) -- However difficult the ethical questions, the procedure used to clone Dolly the lamb is not very complicated, according to scientists.
(512K/28 sec. QuickTime movie) - Slide show explanation on how cloning works.
In fact, scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute and other laboratories have previously cloned animals from embryos. What makes Dolly unique is that she was cloned from a single cell of an adult animal.
Most experts thought that was impossible, because they believed cells older than the embryonic stage lost the ability to produce a whole animal from a single cell.
Here's a short course on how Dolly came about:
Scientists took a cell from an adult sheep's udder. They took an unfertilized egg from a second sheep, and removed the part that contains its genetic code.
Next, the cell and the egg were zapped with electricity to combine them. The egg began dividing as a fertilized egg would divide, and became an embryo.
The embryo was implanted in a third sheep, a surrogate mother, that gave birth to Dolly. Aside from being genetically identical to the sheep that donated the udder cell, Dolly seems normal in every way.
Related story:
- Should we be cloning around? - February 24, 1997
Related sites:
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- Roslin Institute
- Scottish Biomedical Association Web Site
- Church of Scotland - Should we clone animals?
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University - Biotechnology Issues
- Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy - Animals as Inventions: Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Rights
- BioSpace
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