Dolly The Sheep

            Sufficient information concerning the techniques and practices involved in cloning is required for forming a worthy argument of whether or not cloning entire organisms should be commonplace. Because ethics and morals are often jumbled in this popular debate, it is fair to firstly understand the procedure. .
             In the article, "Should We Clone Humans?" in the textbook, the two known methods for cloning whole organisms are discussed. Embryo splitting is one way, where undifferentiated cells in a fertilized egg are separated and implanted into a different mother. The result of this placement is eight identical clones of the offspring that would have been the outcome of the original egg, had it fertilized naturally. This method of cloning, however, does not produce an exact replica of either parent, as in the case of Dolly, the Scottish white-faced sheep, because the splitting is done after the union of sperm and egg.
             Dolly's birth, explained in detail in the article "Cloning: Will There Ever Be Another Ewe?", was the result of cloning using a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. As defined in the text, a somatic cell is "any cell in the body except a germ cell," and contains the same entire set of DNA. Dolly's story is revolutionary, in that, before her birth, it was deemed unfeasible to make a somatic cell differentiate as if it were a fertilized egg. Dolly, conversely, changed that notion. She was created by taking a somatic cell from the udder of a white-faced sheep and depleting it of all nutrients so that it ceases to develop. It is then electrically fused with an egg taken from a black-faced sheep. The egg, having had its nucleus removed, is stripped of its DNA and therefore all genetic characteristics. Another electrical pulse incites the fused cell to begin dividing repeatedly like a normal embryo. Six days later, the one surviving embryo of 29, was implanted in the uterus of another black-faced sheep, who eventually gave birth to Dolly, an exact clone of the white-faced sheep, that provided the somatic udder cell.