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Cloning is the production of one or more individual plants or animals that are genetically identical to another plant or animal. Nature is the greatest cloning agent. In about one of every 75 human conceptions, the fertilized ovum splits for some unknown reason and produces identical twins. Each has a genetic makeup identical to the other. Bacteria, yeast and other cells multiply rapidly; these methods make possible the production of many copies of a particular gene. The copies can then be isolated and used for study or for medical and commercial purposes.
This technique is also called cloning because it uses clones of organisms or cells. It has great economic and medical potential and is still in active research. Through recent advances in genetic engineering, scientist can isolate an individual gene from one organism and grow it in another organism belonging to a different species. The species chosen as a recipient is usually one that can reproduce asexually, such as a bacterium or yeast. Therefore it is able to produce a clone of organisms, or cells, that all contain the same foreign gene or genes. Cloning has had a fairly long history.
The first successful cloning experiment involved a leopard frog. It took place in 1952 with group of scientist from the Institue for Cancer Research in Philadelphia. To clone the frog they used an embryonic frog cell nucleus. In 1962, John Gurdon of Cambridge University cloned a toad that survived thru adulthood and was able to reproduce. Embryo cloning has been successfully carried out for years on many species of animals.
Some limited experimentation has been done on human embryos. Adult DNA cloning has been used to clone a sheep, but was not tried on humans until December 1998. With the exception of the sperm and egg, every cell in the body contains all of the genetic material in its DNA to theoretically create an exact clone of the original body. But cells have been? biochemical programmed to perform limited functions? .
The other functions are turned off. Most scientists had believed that such differentiated cells could not be reprogrammed to be capable of behaving as a fertilized egg. In the case of the sheep? Dolly? , a cell was taken from mammary tissue of a mature 6 year old sheep while its DNA was in a dormant state. It was fused with a sheep ovum which had had its nucleus removed.
The? fertilized? cell was then stimulated with an electric pulse. Out of 277 attempts at cell fusion attempts at cell fusion, only 29 began to divide. These were all implanted in ewes, 13 became pregnant but only one lamb, Dolly, was born.
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Research essay sample on Attempts At Cell Fusion Attempts At Cell Cloning
