Animal cloning

Animal cloning

Animal cloning is the process in which a single cell is taken from the parent organism, i.e. an animal in this case, which helps in reproducing a genetically identical organism. The cloned animal is an exact duplicate of its parent in every way, besides having the same DNA. The first cloned animal was a sheep named “Dolly”

History on Animal Cloning

Attempts to clone animals were made from a very long time. The timeline below shows the history of animal cloning from 1952 to 2001 which will give an overview of what animals were researched on and when was this done.

Fifty years of animal cloning

1952: Cloning by nuclear transfer first demonstrated in animals. Source of nuclei was the very early embryo of the frog Rana pipens.

1956: Animal cloning in toads (Xenopus laevis) achieved by nuclear transfer from tadpoles.

1989-90: Cloning first achieved in mammals (rabbits, sheep, cows) by nuclear transfer from very early embryos.

1995: Cloning first achieved by nuclear transfer from cultured mammalian cell line, resulting in the sheep Megan and Morag.

1997: Cloning first achieved using adult sheep cell, resulting in Dolly.

1997: Cloning first achieved using a transgenic sheep, Polly.

1998-2000: Cloning achieved using adult cells in mice, cows, pigs, goats and monkeys.

2001: Cloning first achieved following gene knockout in sheep.