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This is a test for moderating.  More controls are needed otherwise the world will change completely.

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I think more research needs to be done.

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Cloning is a bit controversial....

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Not really sure - can only remember Dolly the sheep.

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As the first cloned mammal ever to be created from an adult cell, her birth was of huge excitement both to the scientific world and to the public.

Dolly the sheep fact file

Acquired
Gifted by the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh

Did you know?
Dolly was named after the legendary country and western singer Dolly Parton.

Why clone a sheep?

The development of cloning technology was an extension of the Roslin Institute's interest in the application of transgenic technology to farm animals. Transgenesis is the process of introducing an external gene, called a transgene, into a living organism so that the organism will display a new trait, which it may then pass on to its offspring. Transgenesis has been practised on mice since the early 1980s, producing so-called 'super mice' through a very sophisticated genetic modification technology using embryonic stem cells.

Since embryonic stem cells had not been isolated from farm animals, this method of genetic modification was not available. Cloning was therefore a potential alternative way of achieving the same end.

Hello Dolly

As with all other cloned animals, Dolly started her life in a test tube. Once normal development was confirmed at six days, the embryo, which was eventually to become Dolly, was transferred into a surrogate mother. The pregnancy went without a problem and Dolly was born on 5 July 1996.

The birth of Dolly was kept under wraps until the publication of the Roslin Institute's research results could be prepared. Once these results were released, the full impact of the discovery became plain, as the world's press descended on Roslin.

Dolly's family

In an attempt to allow Dolly to have as normal a life as possible, it was decided that she should be allowed to breed. A small Welsh mountain ram was selected as her mate and between them they successfully produced six lambs. Their first lamb, Bonny, was born in the spring of 1998. Twins followed the next year and triplets the year after that.

Dolly as a lamb with her surrogate mother. © Roslin Institute.

Dolly and her first lamb Bonnie. © Roslin Institute.

Dolly the sheep being scanned. © Roslin Institute.

Dolly on film

This short animation about Dolly was made by young volunteers at National Museum of Scotland working with curators from our Science and Technology department and animator Cameron Duguid.

Dolly takes on the Atom Smasher

Dolly and the Atom Smasher was designed and made as part of a National Museums Scotland project, Game Jam, which brought together schools pupils, game developers and museum objects. Pupils from Craigie High School in Dundee worked with Dundee Games Collective (DGC) and staff from the museum's Community Engagement team.

You can find out more about the project on our blog.

The Adventures of Dolly the Sheep: Clone Alone

Dolly the sheep is part of

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As the first cloned mammal ever to be created from an adult cell, her birth was of huge excitement both to the scientific world and to the public. Acquired Gifted by the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh Did you know? Dolly was named after the legendary country and western singer Dolly Parton.

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This can be dangerous. It is playing God.

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Depends on how this will be used for mankind.

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Miss, can you tell me the difference between artificial embryo twinning and somatic cell nuclear transfer please?

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Many people first heard of cloning when Dolly the Sheep showed up on the scene in 1997. Artificial cloning technologies have been around for much longer than Dolly, though.

There are two ways to make an exact genetic copy of an organism in a lab: artificial embryo twinning and somatic cell nuclear transfer.

1. Artificial Embryo Twinning

Artificial embryo twinning is a relatively low-tech way to make clones. As the name suggests, this technique mimics the natural process that creates identical twins.

In nature, twins form very early in development when the embryo splits in two. Twinning happens in the first days after egg and sperm join, while the embryo is made of just a small number of unspecialized cells. Each half of the embryo continues dividing on its own, ultimately developing into separate, complete individuals. Since they developed from the same fertilized egg, the resulting individuals are genetically identical.

Artificial embryo twinning uses the same approach, but it is carried out in a Petri dish instead of inside the mother. A very early embryo is separated into individual cells, which are allowed to divide and develop for a short time in the Petri dish. The embryos are then placed into a surrogate mother, where they finish developing. Again, since all the embryos came from the same fertilized egg, they are genetically identical.

2. Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), also called nuclear transfer, uses a different approach than artificial embryo twinning, but it produces the same result: an exact genetic copy, or clone, of an individual. This was the method used to create Dolly the Sheep.

What does SCNT mean? Let's take it apart:

Somatic cell: A somatic cell is any cell in the body other than sperm and egg, the two types of reproductive cells. Reproductive cells are also called germ cells. In mammals, every somatic cell has two complete sets of chromosomes, whereas the germ cells have only one complete set.

Nuclear: The nucleus is a compartment that holds the cell's DNA. The DNA is divided into packages called chromosomes, and it contains all the information needed to form an organism. It's small differences in our DNA that make each of us unique.

Transfer: Moving an object from one place to another. To make Dolly, researchers isolated a somatic cell from an adult female sheep. Next they removed the nucleus and all of its DNA from an egg cell. Then they transferred the nucleus from the somatic cell to the egg cell. After a couple of chemical tweaks, the egg cell, with its new nucleus, was behaving just like a freshly fertilized egg. It developed into an embryo, which was implanted into a surrogate mother and carried to term. (The transfer step is most often done using an electrical current to fuse the membranes of the egg and the somatic cell.)

The lamb, Dolly, was an exact genetic replica of the adult female sheep that donated the somatic cell. She was the first-ever mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.

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Many people first heard of cloning when Dolly the Sheep showed up on the scene in 1997. Artificial cloning technologies have been around for much longer than Dolly, though. There are two ways to make an exact genetic copy of an organism in a lab: artificial embryo twinning and somatic cell nuclear transfer.

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Be an original not a copy :)

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What are the potential drawbacks of cloning?

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I'm not sure this study on people is ethical

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You can learn a lot from cloning experimentation but sometimes animals are badly treated