ClonesBy: Lizzet Orozco

What are clones? Clones are the creation of an organism

that is an exact genetic copy of another. This means that every single bit of DNA is the same between the two. What’s needed to create a clone is a piece of DNA of someone or something, such as a piece of hair from someone/something, or finger prints.

Is cloning an organism the same as cloning gene?

No, cloning an organism is not the same as cloning a gene. You may have heard about researchers cloning, or identifying, genes that are responsible for various medical conditions or traits, but there is a difference.

What is the difference? Cloning an animal, or any other organism, refers to

making an exact genetic copy of that organism. Cloning a gene means isolating an exact copy of a

single gene from the entire genome of an organism. Usually this involves copying the DNA sequence of that gene into a smaller, more accessible piece of DNA, such as a plasmid.

How is cloning done? There are a couple of ways to do this: artificial

embryo twinning and somatic cell nuclear transfer. How do these processes differ?

Artificial embryo twinning is the relatively low-tech version of cloning. As the name suggests, this technology mimics the natural process of creating identical twins.

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

How does artificial embryo twinning and somatic cell nuclear transfer differ?

An embryo is composed of cells that contain two complete sets of chromosomes. The difference between fertilization and SCNT lies in where those two sets originated.

In fertilization, the sperm and egg both contain one set of chromosomes. When the sperm and egg join, the resulting zygote ends up with two sets; one from the father (sperm) and one from the mother (egg).

In SCNT, the egg cell's single set of chromosomes is removed. It is replaced by the nucleus from a somatic cell, which already contains two complete sets of chromosomes. Therefore, in the resulting embryo, both sets of chromosomes come from the somatic cell.

Human cloning hasn’t exactly been made but it has been tested. Never has a human clone developed because scientist don’t let it happen for inconvenient reasons. However cloning has been proven on animals such as goats, pigs, sheep, etc. Scientist believe that every time they clone an animal and it works, they are one step closer to cloning humans with the same successful result.

My opinion is that human cloning should be tested and proven so that people can have clones. The process of human clones developing would be interesting to see happen. Having a clone would also be a nice experience to have, maybe have him/her do your homework while your out with friends, or maybe have them stay home while you go out and party without your parents knowing. Another interesting thing would be to clone someone who is about to die, so you can still have some what the “same” person. Just the idea of having a clone is pretty interesting and seems cool.

Reference Page. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/te

ch/cloning/whatiscloning/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cloning/ http://

www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml