Cloning
- Cloning is a technique scientists use to make exact genetic copies of living things. Genes, cells, tissues, and even whole animals can all be cloned.
Types:
- Therapeutic: In therapeutic cloning, the aim is to clone cells that make particular organs or types of tissue
- Reproductive: In this we actually reproduce not organ but entire being(donor) from where we got genetic information
Methods:
- Natural: This happens naturally when one embryo spontaneously divides into two or more embryos, thus creating identical twins or, sometimes, triplets or even more
- Artifical: An existing embryo is mechanically divided into two or more embryos that are then allowed to develop naturally
- Artifical and Donor: Through use of somatic cell of Donor.
Significance
- An embryo made by cloning can be turned into a stem cell factory.
- Stem cells are an early form of cells that can grow into many different types of cells and tissues.
- Scientists can turn them into nerve cells to fix a damaged spinal cord or insulin-making cells to treat diabetes.
- The cloning of animals has been used in a number of different applications.
- Animals have been cloned to have gene mutations that help scientists study diseases that develop in the animals.
- Livestock like cows and pigs have been cloned to produce more milk or meat.
- Example India is doing this project on Indigenous breeds
- Cloning might one day bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth or giant panda.
- It overcomes the problem of immune rejection which is major concern during organ transplantation
- It can help in understanding process of ageing