Word: mice
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Whatever the reason, the cloned mice were perfectly normal in all respects. They could mate and give birth, and their DNA was so robust that they themselves could be cloned--and their clones cloned. So far, Wakayama and his colleagues at the University of Hawaii have produced three generations of identical mice...
...answers are finally in. The verdict, according to a trio of reports in the current issue of Nature: yes and yes. Not only have Dolly's pedigree and her immaculate conception been established beyond all reasonable doubt, but she has been joined by litter upon litter of perfectly cloned mice. Cloning has, with a speed no one anticipated, been transformed from an astonishing technical tour de force into what seems almost a mundane laboratory procedure...
What makes Dolly and these new mice special--and distinguishes them from barnyards of previously cloned pigs, cows and sheep--is that they were cloned from adult cells or, as the scientists call them, differentiated cells. All those earlier clones were made from fetal cells, which have no specialized function but carry the potential to turn into anything and everything the body needs...
Wakayama's idea was truly crazy: he wanted to clone mice, long believed to be among the worst candidates for cloning because their egg cells are particularly delicate and their embryos develop so rapidly. He squeezed in the cloning work during his free time, carefully manipulating one type of mouse cell after another until, just months after Dolly was unleashed on the world, he succeeded in cloning the cumulus cells that surround the egg in the ovary. Wakayama's whimsical name for his new creation: Cumulina...
...Creating pigs with transplantable organs could mean big business for the two firms -- at least 50,000 Americans are on the waiting list for a transplant. But there's another, more ominous implication: If the Honolulu technique is able to produce cloned pigs as well as mice, it's more likely to work with humans, too. Put your order...