Unit 1: What is Cloning?

What is Cloning?

When you think of a clone, do you think of a copy of you that stays at home doing all of those tiresome chores that your parents give you while you are out playing with your friends? Or maybe the twins that live up the street that seem to mimic each other just to annoy everyone. These are both really good examples of a clone! Read on to find out more about cloning.

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Describe the process of cloning and what a clone is.
• Explain two different processes of cloning
• Name a few ways that cloning is used in our world.

Activity 1

On a sheet of blank paper write before on the top and answer the following questions:

1. Have you ever hear of a clone before?
2. What is a clone?
3. What is cloning used for?
4. Is it possible to clone larger organisms (like dogs, cats or humans)?

Once you have answered these questions turn your paper over, you will revisit it later.

Activity 2

Click on the link below and read the article about:

What is Cloning?

Once you have finished reading the article on the back of the paper that you used before answer the following questions:

1. What is a clone?
2. What are the two ways that cloning can be done?
3. Which process did scientists use to clone Dolly the sheep and how was it done?
4. Are there such things as natural clones?
5. compare Artificial Embryo Twinning and Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.

Take a look at your answers on both sides. Did you do well? Did you know what a clone was before you read the article? Hopefully after reading the article you should be more knowledgeable with how cloning is done, but if not here's a little review:

A Clone is: "A cell, group of cells or organism that is descended from and genetically identical to a single common ancestor."

The process of cloning is: "To make multiple identical copies of a cell."

There are two processes that can be used when cloning, Artificial Embryo Twinning and Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. For right now though we want to focus on SCNT. A simpler way of thinking about this type of cloning can be looked at in three steps:

1. The nucleus is removed from a zygote (a fertilized egg)
2. A donor nucleus from a somatic (non-reproductive like a skin cell) is taken and put into the zygote
3. The zygote is then prompted to split and grow into a new organism.

Cloning not only involves cells, but bacteria, and larger organisms as well. In the past years scientists have had success cloning mice, cats, dogs, cows, horses and the most famous of all Dolly the sheep. Dolly was the first organism that was larger than 32 cells to be successfully cloned, this means that she actually was born and lived a semi-normal life. Unfourtunaly for you and I, there has been no cloning of humans, not because we can't, but because there are many issues surrounding it which we will get into in the next unit. So for right now you are still going to have to do the dishes before you get to go out and play.

Activity 3

Use the following link to read about some of the things that we can do with cloning:

There are several paragraphs on different ways that cloning can be used. Please read about all of them.

Human Genome Project, cloning

Just to summarize up what you read, cloning can be used in the following ways:

• Reproductive cloning: When we generate an animal with identical genetics to its parent. The most famous organism to be cloned was Dolly the sheep.

• Therapeutic Cloning also called embryo cloning: With this process we want to be able to create embryos so that we can harvest the stem cells (un specialized cells) so that they can be used to help treat diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, heart diseases along with others.

• Cloning technology helps us with understanding other such technologies, such as genetic engineering, gene therapy and being able to reproduce animals with special qualities.

• Scientists hope to one day be able to successfully clone tissues and organs, so that we are able to transplant them into organisms without the fear of rejection.

Activity 4

Reflection Questions

Answer the following questions using the knowledge that you have learned from the first unit.

1. What is a clone?
2. Describe the process of cloning.
3. What are a few animals that have been cloned?
4. What are other uses of cloning?

Other Resources

Here is one more source that you can look at to help your understanding with how the process of cloning takes place:

Cloning Process

Go back to Issues of Cloning

Go to Unit 2: The Pros and Cons of Cloning