HELLO everyone!

(INTRODUCTION)

Everyone might have taken biotechnology for various reasons; be it research and stuffs. But, in our
childhood, one thing that fantasized us would definitely be cloning. We would have wished to make
many clones or copies of us just to do our homework so that we can go out to play, right?

Even I’ve dreamt about the same! That’s how I ended up here, being a biotechnology professor! In
the next few minutes, we are going to know the basics of cloning, the techniques and the enormous
amount of future scope and opportunities this provides us! Shall we?

Cloning is a technique scientists use to make exact genetic copies of living things. Genes, cells,
tissues, and even whole animals can all be cloned.

Some clones already exist in nature. And , we come across them daily, without ever noticing! Single-
celled organisms like bacteria make exact copies of themselves each time they reproduce. In
humans, identical twins are similar to clones. They share almost the exact same genes. Identical
twins are created when a fertilized egg splits in two.

Scientists also make clones in the lab. They often clone genes in order to study and better
understand them. To clone a gene, researchers take DNA from a living creature and insert it into a
carrier like bacteria or yeast. Every time that carrier reproduces, a new copy of the gene is made.
Easy , right? But, cloning multicellular organisms isn’t that easy and we need improved techniques
for that!

Animals are cloned in one of two ways. The first is called embryo twinning.

How Is It Done?

Artificial embryo twinning is done by the same process as naturally born twins are, except it occurs
outside of the uterus. In order to do so, one must manually separate an early embryo into individual
cells, and then leave each cell to divide and grow by itself. The resulting embryos are placed into a
surrogate mother (the mother chosen to carry and birth the twins), where they are carried for their
time and then eventually delivered. The embryos came from the same zygote, so they are
genetically identical ("WHAT").

Scientists first split an embryo in half. Those two halves are then placed in a mother’s uterus. Each
part of the embryo develops into a unique animal, and the two animals share the same genes. The
second method is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Somatic cells are all the cells that make up an
organism, but that are not sperm or egg cells. Sperm and egg cells contain only one set of
chromosomes, and when they join during fertilization, the mother’s chromosomes merge with the
father’s.

Embryonic cell just have one set of chromosomes (and…they are called haploid)

Somatic cells, on the other hand, already contain two full sets of chromosomes. To make a clone,
scientists transfer the DNA from an animal’s somatic cell into an egg cell that has had its nucleus and
DNA removed. The egg develops into an embryo that contains the same genes as the cell donor.
Then the embryo is implanted into an adult female’s uterus to grow.

In 1996, Scottish scientists cloned the first animal, a sheep they named Dolly. She was cloned using
an udder cell taken from an adult sheep. Animal cloning has been popularized for more than two
decades, since the birth of Dolly the Sheep 25 years ago in 1996. There has been an apparent waning
of interest in cloning, evident by a reduced number of reports. Over 1500 dogs, representing
approximately 20% of the American Kennel Club’s recognized breeds, have now been cloned, making
the dog (Canis familiars) one of the most successfully cloned mammals. Dogs have a unique
relationship with humans, dating to prehistory, and a high degree of genome homology to humans.
A number of phenotypic variations, rarely recorded in natural reproduction have been observed in in
these more than 1000 clones. These observations differ between donors and their clones, and
between clones from the same donor, indicating a non-genetic effect. These differences cannot be
fully explained by current understandings but point to epigenetic and cellular reprograming effects
of somatic cell nuclear transfer. Notably, some phenotypic variations have been reversed through
further cloning.

Approximately 22 animal species have been reported to be cloned by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
(SCNT). Among them approximately 19 have had individuals which survived to adulthood. Dolly the
Sheep, cloned in 1996, is highly regarded to be the first cloned mammal. Since then, similar
protocols, without substantial differences, have been followed for all other reported cloned animals.

A clear difference in the interest of animal cloning has been observed, with publications for mammal
cloning reaching nearly 6000 in 1997, falling to fewer than 500 in 2017 according to PubMed .Why
the apparent interest, based on publication number, has declined is a matter of speculation; it is not
initially due to a decrease in new species cloned as the majority of species cloned were cloned in the
following few years . No new species have, however, been cloned in the past 5 years.

Why? Does this mean biotechnologists are lacking interest in the area of cloning?

This may either be a result of cloning becoming more normalized, and thus less novelty in
publication, or may represent the lack in advancement and interest it generates.

They still have not cloned a human, though.

In part, this is because it is difficult to produce a viable(living) clone. In each attempt, there can be
genetic mistakes that prevent the clone from surviving. It took scientists nearly 276 attempts to get
Dolly right. There are also ethical concerns about cloning a human being.

Researchers can use clones in many ways. An embryo made by cloning can be turned into a stem cell
factory. Stem cells are an early form of cells that can grow into many different types of cells and
tissues. Scientists can turn them into nerve cells to fix a damaged spinal cord or insulin-making cells
to treat diabetes.

The cloning of animals has been used in a number of different applications. Animals have been
cloned to have gene mutations that help scientists study diseases that develop in the animals.
Livestock like cows and pigs have been cloned to produce more milk or meat. Clones can even
“resurrect” a beloved pet that has died. In 2001, a cat named CC was the first pet to be created
through cloning. Cloning might one day bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth or giant
panda.