- “cloning technology” It was date 15th February 2003, when some newspapers published the news about the death of one sheep. Strange it was, but how could any news be so much important about the death of a seep?
- “cloning technology” But it was something important kind of sheep, one of its kinds, very important for the scientific world. Well, that was the Dolly sheep. It was the first cloned animal created by scientists. At that time too many questions arose in the mind of people in that time.
What is cloning technology actually?
- Cloning technology is a genetic process in which an identical copy of a cell or an organism is generated. Though it is a natural process and cultivated by nature under biomedical research, experiments of cloning are also done by humans.
- Ideally, it is a duplication of cells naturally done by nature. In a broader way cloning is the duplication of any kind of biological material for scientific study, for example, the sample of DNA or an individual cell. The making of Dolly sheep was a part of such an experiment.
This is Dolly Sheep the first successful result of cloning technology in animals.
History of Cloning
- History said that German embryologist Hans Spemann carried out cloning by twinning salamanders in the early 1900s. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (1935) for the theory of cloning procedure.
- But that term was known as nuclear transfer at that time. After that many other scientists from different countries carried away that project for further research.
- Lastly, biologist John Bertrand Gurdon succeeded in doing this nuclear transfer by using DNA from adult intestinal cells of African clawed frogs. The Nobel Prize for Medicine was given to Gurdon in the year 2012.
Why Cloning is needed?
- The cloning process gave hope to the scientists to manipulate cells and detect chemical markers. The advancement of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s makes possible to create transgenic clones.
- They wanted to make copies of animals that are specially created to give high-quality meat or milk or wool. At the same time, scientists were to hope for the ideal breed of human beings also, who need no medicine ever in their life.
Diagrammatic representation of Animal Cloning technology
The Historical Day
- At the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, a researcher named Ivan Wilmot and Keith Campbell prepared a clone. That was a clone of sheep. They named it Dolly the sheep. This was the first mammal clone made by scientists.
- The name Dolly was the name of the singer of that time Dolly Parton. They use the technique of nuclear transfer involving an enucleated embryo and a differentiated cell nucleus. This technique is later on known as (SCNT) somatic cell nuclear transfer.
- This indicates that now it was possible for the DNA in differentiated somatic (body) cells to revert to an undifferentiated embryonic stage. In the future, this term would be developed as stem cell therapy.
- Soon after Dolly, other animals were under trial, for example, pigs, goats, rats, mice, dogs, horses, and mules. Though the success of Dolly had many possibilities for other mammals, scientists could not get success until 2018.
- With the process called embryonic cell nuclear transfer, a team of scientists completed the trial of cloning the rhesus monkey, which is similar to SCNT. In 2007 with the help of the SCNT process again macaque monkey embryos were cloned technology. But these clones did not live up to a significant level.
Story of How Dolly the sheep was cloning technology
Controversy on Cloning
- After creating the Dolly sheep, scientists were busy with the upcoming experiment and research, while some people opposed against cloning technology system. These people believed that if a human being were the next topic of cloning, that would put the human being in the role of ‘CREATOR’.
- Under that threat, some governments, guided by a religious body, and identifying the risk, banned cloning technology. Cloning technology can help humans to improve their species. There are some philosophical issues also. Cloning technology is a very revolutionary step for humans at the same time somewhere it is banned for an undecided time.
- But humans can use the process and create the same person who was without any vegetables. Thus cloning technology could be there to make humans better. But at the same time, we violate things like human dignity, freedom, and equality.
internal links:
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a nucleic acid – Erakina
ECU Cloning – Everything You Need To Know – Erakina
External links:
By Devanshi Nigotiya
Date: 07/04/2022
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