Scientific advances on Cloning - Research Paper Example

Some have suggested that the “fear of the unknown” aspect of cloning mammals, though understandable, is largely unfounded. The potential benefits are numerous and outweigh the concerns brought forth by those who don’t fully understand the process or implications of cloning. Laws and regulations related to this new science will be implemented to address the ethical implications but it’s impossible to stop scientific exploration. The birth of Dolly the sheep represents the birth of a new, exciting scientific method that will change the course of medical history for the better.

The Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute, along with his colleagues, announced on February 23, 1996 they had cloned a sheep by using a ground-technique. The method involved transplanting genetic matter from an adult sheep into a hollowed-out egg, an egg that had its nucleus removed. “The researchers fused the adult udder cell with an (egg) that was ready to be fertilized, but taken from a different sheep. The scientists had previously removed the nucleus from the (egg) using an electrical current to fuse it with the udder cell.

” (Barnes, 2012). This sequence instigated cell division. The resulting embryo was then implanted into another sheep who acted as the surrogate-mother. The secret to this method’s success was making the nucleus of the donor’s udder cell “silent” so it would quit performing as it was originally intended and then reprogrammed it to act as an embryonic cell. That embryo would become Dolly; a sheep with three “mothers” involved but only related biologically to the one that donated an udder cell.

Dolly shared all of the udder donor’s chromosomes but none of the host egg cell’s chromosomes. Consequently, Dolly is an exact genetic reproduction of the donor-cell sheep. Previous cloning experiments that used