DOLLY
In 1997, cloning was revolutionized when Ian Wilmut
and
his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, successfully
cloned a sheep and named it Dolly. Dolly was the first cloned mammal
in the history of science.
Wilmut and his colleagues did this by transplanting
a nucleus from a mammary gland cell of a Finn Dorsett sheep into
the enucleated egg of a Scottish blackface ewe. The nucleus-egg combination
was stimulated with electricity to fuse the two and to stimulate
cell division. The new cell divided and was placed in the uterus of a black
face ewe to develop. Dolly was born months later.
Dolly was shown to be genetically identical to the
Finn Dorsett mammary cells and not to the blackface ewe, which clearly
demonstrated that she was a successful clone. (It took 276 attempts
before they were successful.) Dolly has since grown and reproduced several
offspring naturally. Therefore, Dolly is a healthy clone.
Scientists have take steps further in cloning by using
cows, pigs, monkeys, and mice.
Could humans be next?
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