Who invented human cloning

As recently By Shao Bowen, Sixth Tone Human Genetic Modification. Polling News. By Pete Shanks, Medium Scientific breakthrough: Chinese scientists clone 2 female monkeys. Briggs and King transferred the nucleus from an early tadpole embryo into an enucleated frog egg a frog egg from which the nucleus had been removed. The resulting cell developed into a tadpole. The scientists created many normal tadpole clones using nuclei from early embryos. Most importantly, this experiment showed that nuclear transfer was a viable cloning technique.

It also reinforced two earlier observations. Second, embryonic cells early in development are better for cloning than cells at later stages. Gurdon transplanted the nucleus of a tadpole intestinal cell into an enucleated frog egg.

In this way, he created tadpoles that were genetically identical to the one from which the intestinal cell was taken. This experiment showed that, despite previous failures, nuclei from somatic cells in a fully developed animal could be used for cloning. Importantly, it suggested that cells retain all of their genetic material even as they divide and differentiate although some wondered if the donor DNA came from a stem cell, which can differentiate into multiple types of cells.

Mammalian egg cells are much smaller than those of frogs or salamanders, so they are harder to manipulate. Using a glass pipette as a tiny straw, Bromhall transferred the nucleus from a rabbit embryo cell into an enucleated rabbit egg cell. He considered the procedure a success when a morula, or advanced embryo, developed after a couple of days.

This experiment showed that mammalian embryos could be created by nuclear transfer. To show that the embryos could continue developing, Bromhall would have had to place them into a mother rabbit's womb. He never did this experiment. Willadsen used a chemical process to separated one cell from an 8-cell lamb embryo. The he used a small electrical shock to fuse it to an enucleated egg cell. As luck would have it, the new cell started dividing.

By this time, in vitro fertilization techniques had been developed, and they had been used successfully to help couples have babies. So after a few days, Willadsen placed the lamb embryos into the womb of surrogate mother sheep. The result was the birth of three live lambs. This experiment showed that it was possible to clone a mammal by nuclear transfer—and that the clone could fully develop. Even though the donor nuclei came from early embryonic cells, the experiment was considered a great success.

Using methods very similar to those used by Willadsen on sheep, First, Prather, and Eyestone produced two cloned calves. Their names were Fusion and Copy.

However, Boisselier refused to say where the baby was born, identify her parents, or even provide a picture. Ethicist Jonathan Moreno is troubled by so much of today's announcement. At the top of his list are the problems seen in animals that have been cloned so far, which makes Boisselier's claims of good health for the baby premature at best.

So we don't really know what the health consequences are going to be for this child," he tells Axelrod. Clearly, the announcement is creating a flood of questions: ethical, medical, political, religious -- some which belonged solely to the field of science fiction up to this point. Most scientists, already skeptical of Boisellier's ability to produce a human clone, will probably demand to know exactly how the DNA testing was done before they believe the announcement.

I'm still a skeptic and I'm hoping that it's not true," said University of Georgia cloning expert Steve Stice. In Rome, fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who said weeks ago that a cloned baby boy would be born in January, dismissed Clonaid's claims and said the group has no scientific credibility.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering. Cloning produces a new individual using only one person's DNA.

Even plants are being cloned. One company is cloning maple trees to provide lumber for guitar-makers, with the aim of duplicating a quality in the wood, called figuring, that gives a guitar a sort of shimmering appearance. There are many other applications for cloning. The movie "Jurassic Park" stirred the public's imagination and asked the question, "Can we use cloning to bring back extinct species through cloning?

On July 30, , a group of scientists led by Jose Folch at the Center of Food Technology and Research of Aragon, in northern Spain, brought back an extinct wild goat called a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex. The cloned animal lived for only 10 minutes, according to National Geographic , but the scientists proved that an extinct animal could be brought back.

Researchers at Harvard are currently working to clone woolly mammoths , and they say they should be able to do so by While cloning a human is currently illegal in most parts of the world, cloning stem cells from humans is a very promising field of research. Stem cells can be reprogrammed to become any type of cell needed to repair or replace damaged tissue or cells in the body.

Stem cell research has the potential to help people who have spinal injuries and other conditions. Another area of research, the cloning of hair follicles, began more than a decade ago. It's just one potential application of human-cell cloning: treating hair loss. Williams Jr.