First of all, we need the animal we want to clone. In this example I will use a mouse because this are mamals, but they are quite simple and easy to get. Secondly, we need an egg cell donor and thirdly, we need a surrogate mother for the cloned egg.
The first step is to isolate the somatic cell of the mouse that gets cloned and an egg cell of the donor. Then we have to remove the nucleus from the egg cell of the donor. After this we have to remove the nucleus of the somatic cell and replace the nucleus in the enucleated egg cell. After a while the DNA will be "reprogrammed" so that the new nucleus works for the cell. Now we have to stimulate the cell to start doing mitosis with a chemical that mimics the events that the egg seems to be fertalized. Wait a few hours again and you will see under a microscope that the cell is already dividing and growing. Now we need to implant this embryo into the surrogate mother. After nineteen days the new mouse will be born. This mouse will be an exact replica of the mouse that donated the somatic cell.
The first step is to isolate the somatic cell of the mouse that gets cloned and an egg cell of the donor. Then we have to remove the nucleus from the egg cell of the donor. After this we have to remove the nucleus of the somatic cell and replace the nucleus in the enucleated egg cell. After a while the DNA will be "reprogrammed" so that the new nucleus works for the cell. Now we have to stimulate the cell to start doing mitosis with a chemical that mimics the events that the egg seems to be fertalized. Wait a few hours again and you will see under a microscope that the cell is already dividing and growing. Now we need to implant this embryo into the surrogate mother. After nineteen days the new mouse will be born. This mouse will be an exact replica of the mouse that donated the somatic cell.
The difficulties with cloning are that it is very hard to get a successful outcome with more complicated animals than with mice. Often the DNA of the somatic cell can't really connect with the egg cell of the donor. this can cause a lot of trouble because it usually happens that those animals are not able to live after their born. |
Also it seems that the DNA has our death programmed. Dolly the sheep for example died after seven years, while the original became fourteen years. The original sheep was seven years when the cell got extracted so it seems that the DNA caused the early death of Dolly the sheep.
It is also very hard to say whether it is a good idea to clone humans. The big question is if those people would be humans second class or not. Novels like "Never let me go" are noting that those clones could be abused easily as organ donors. There is probably no correct answer, but it would be a huge scientific step to clone a human.