20 years after Dolly the sheep, potential

of cloning remains unclear

By Kelly Murray, CNN
Updated 0203 GMT (1003 HKT) February 25, 2017

(CNN)On February 22, 1997, the world learned about a secret project that
scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland had been working on.
More than seven months earlier, on July 5, 1996, they had aided a Scottish
Blackface sheep in giving birth to a Finn Dorset lamb codenamed 6LL3.
She was the first mammal to ever be cloned from the cells of an adult animal.
Using a breakthrough technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, scientists at
Roslin took a nucleus -- the part of the cell that contains most of its genetic
information -- from cells within the maummary gland of an adult sheep and
stuck it inside an unfertilized egg from which the nucleshad been removed.
They stimulated the egg to develop into an embryo and planted the embryo into
a surrogate mother. The lamb was dubbed Dolly, a nod to country music legend
Dolly Parton and her famously ample bosom.
Years later, that same cell cluster was used to make four other sheep just like
Dolly.
Revealing Dolly
The lab had kept her birth secret for seven months to make the announcement
coincide with the publication of the scientific paper describing the experiments
that produced her, they said.
Cloning stem cells: What does it mean?
That week, they recall, they received 3,000 phone calls from all over the world,
according to the Roslin Institute.
Much of the news reports had focused not on cloning sheep but on its potential
for humans, said Alan Colman, who is now a visiting scholar in the Harvard
University Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.
At the time, Colman was research director at PPL Therapeutics, which
specialized in producing transgenic (genetically engineered) livestock.
"We'd underestimated the impact the announcement would make," he said. "It
was something we had prepared for, but we had been totally overwhelmed by
the response."
Dolly's legacy
Previously, cloning had been done using only embryonic cells, and now
researchers had showed that it was possible in cells from another part of the
body -- an adult body.
"At the time she was born, I was ecstatic, because no one had previously been
able to use nuclear transfer to make an adult vertebrate from an adult cell,"
Colman said.
Cloning Fast Facts
Despite the headlines, cloning a mammal wasn't the team's main goal. They
were out to develop a more efficient way to produce genetically modified
livestock.
In fact, Dolly wasn't even the first to ever be cloned. She was the first mammal
cloned from an adult cell.
But scientists have learned a lot since developing the technique, and somatic
cell nuclear transfer has been used in more than 20 species to make clones.
The Roslin Institute explained that people have long been motivated to try
cloning to make copies of the very best animals for agricultural purposes. Also,
since the mid-1980s, there has been an interest in making new uses for farm
animals, including producing human proteins in the milk of transgenic cows or
sheep for medicinal use in humans.
South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation have even cloned dogs.
Dolly the sheep's cloned sisters enjoy good health
But by and large, scientists don't see a need to clone humans.
Instead, they are using what they learned from creating Dolly to make
advancements in stem cell therapy, such as to create embryonic stem cells
directly from a patient's own cells. They can then study the progression of
whichever disease the patient has.
Dolly the sheep is now on display at the National Museum of Scotland.
Concerns
Dolly herself lived out her days at the Roslin Institute and was able to produce
six lambs.
But she was euthanized at age 6 after being diagnosed with progressive lung
disease and after a long battle with arthritis.
Finn Dorset sheep usually live 10 to 11 years, and her health problems seemed
to confirm fears that cloned animals would age faster and die prematurely
compared with animals born naturally.
This was further exemplified by Dolly's four cloned "sisters," who were recently
euthanized because they too began to show symptoms of osteoarthritis.
"OA, as you may know, is a progressive disease, and we took appropriate
measures to manage the condition at the time under veterinary guidance," said
Kevin Sinclair, a developmental biologist at the University of Nottingham who
led research on the sheep.
"These animals were in their 10th year and so coming towards the end of their
natural lifespan."
A recent study of the remaining clones, however, found that they aged the same
as naturally born sheep.
To investigate this further, the team at Nottingham will now conduct
postmortem examinations to truly understand what's going on inside the
animals.
"The final phase of our study ... involves detailed postmortem analyses of
different tissues and organs in order to gain a better insight into the aging
process in these animals," Sinclair said.
The Roslin Institute donated Dolly's body to the National Museum of Scotland,
where she stands to this day.
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/24/health/dolly-the-sheep-cloning-
anniversary/index.html

Topic: Cloning- the evidence that the technology about genetic has developed
and the utility of it in the future.

W-H Quenstions

1. Why the potential of cloning remains unclear?

Because, cloning a mammal wasn't the team's main goal. They were out to
develop a more efficient way to produce genetically modified livestock
and scientists don't see a need to clone humans.
Instead, they are using what they learned from creating Dolly to make
advancements in stem cell therapy, such as to create embryonic stem cells
directly from a patient's own cells.

2. How they do their project ?

Using a breakthrough technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, scientists at
Roslin took a nucleus -- the part of the cell that contains most of its genetic
information -- from cells within the mammary gland of an adult sheep and stuck
it inside an unfertilized egg from which the nucleus had been removed..
They stimulated the egg to develop into an embryo and planted the embryo into
a surrogate mother. The lamb was dubbed Dolly, a nod to country music legend
Dolly Parton and her famously ample bosom. Years later, that same cell cluster
was used to make four other sheep just like Dolly.

3. Who has the idea and do some research about cloning?

Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland.
4. Where is the research being conducted?
the research project was conducted at Roslin Institute in Scotland, and then after
many development in their research, the team at Nottingham will now conduct
postmortem examinations to truly understand what's going on inside the
animals.
 5. What is the benefit that scientist nowadays can get from dolly cloning?
Nowadays, scientist use stem cell technology in medical world. Stem cell
therapy is a therapy to create embryonic stem cells directly from a patient's own
cells.

Resume
At the farm, since the old days of course is a great desire to be able to make a
copy of the best cattle. of the variety of ways that have been there now develops
a new method of the copying process. process is called cloning. cloning is a
more efficient way to produce genetically modified animals. scientists at the
Roslin take the core part of the cell that contains most of the genetic information
of cells in mammary gland of an adult sheep and trapped in unfertilized eggs
from which nucleshad that has been deleted. They stimulated the egg to develop
into an embryo and implanted the embryo into a surrogate mother. Dolly the
sheep was nicknamed. So using the Dolly cloning method it will be very
beneficial to the interests of the farm. But of the many benefits and advantages
of cloning Dolly there are some disadvantages of these methods. including the
cloning of animals will age faster and die younger than the animals are born
naturally.