Cloning

12 Pages 2881 Words

exact genetic material as that of the donor cell. Scientists are using current techniques exceedingly more, and with a variety of species. Astonishingly, more clones are present in the world than one would think. In nature, and even in the lives of humans, clones are present. As stated earlier, a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism. From this we can say that cloning occurs with all plants, some insects, algae, unicellular organisms that conduct mitosis or binary fissions, and occasionally by all multicellular organisms, including humans. Monozygotic twins, or identical twins, are clones of each other. They have the same exact genetic information due to the division of an embryo early in development which produces two identical embryos. About eight million identical twins are alive in the world, thus, already eight million human clones inhabit the world. In unicellular organisms, a cell will produce two daughter cells that have the same genetic material. Today, the only cloning research is occurring in scientific model organisms. These are organisms that research scientists from around the globe have collected copious amounts of data. All this data is necessary so that advancements in research can continue more efficiently. The most common scientific models are E. coli, mice, fruit flies, and frogs. The first organisms that were cloned using nuclear transfer were frogs. This is because they have large egg cells and scientists can obtain up to two thousand of them from one ovulation. (McKinnel, 1979) Successful cloning has occurred with livestock. The drive toward success is not because livestock like cows and sheep are model organisms. Instead, the farming industry has made and continues to make a big effort toward finding a way to implement the technique of nuclear transfer for livestock. Research in cloning is also occurring in primates. The reason for studying primates is the similarities wi...