Is Dolly the 'First' Clone?

By Mine G.

Since the genetics started playing an important role in terms of biological sciences, without a shadow of a doubt, cloning has become one of the most important studies in the 21^st century. But wait, did cloning exist in earlier centuries? Was the sheep Dolly the first step of cloning organisms?

Let’s start off discussing what “cloning” actually means. Cloning is a process of producing identical organisms asexually. Cloning, technically known as “somatic cell nuclear transfer”, happens by extracting DNA from a cell of an organism and inserting extracted DNA to an egg cell (the nucleus that carries genetic information of the egg cell is removed before the process) of another organism. After a while, the egg cell starts acting like a fertilized egg and developed into an embryo in a surrogate mother.

Now, since we know the process of cloning, let's get back to the first question. Did cloning really exist in earlier centuries? 
Well, even though it is thought the sheep Dolly (first mammal that is successfully cloned from an adult cell) was the beginning of the cloning studies by many people, cloning technologies have been the case for scientist for more than 50 years. In 1952, a frog was recorded as the first cloned organism. Robert Briggs and Thomas King created tedpole clones by using the cells in a tadpole embryo. To do that, they inserted the nucleus extracted from a tadpole's somatic cell into an unfertilized egg cell whose nucleus is removed. This method has become a prototype for the experiments for cloning multicellular organisms.

              This experiment is then followed by mice cloning attempts by James McGrath and Davor Solter, nuclear transfers from laboratory cells, and Dolly.

              In the 21^st century, cloning studies, for example human cloning, are still ongoing. Cloning is considered as one of the biggest technologies of all times. But still, there is a lot of questions waiting to be solved in this process. Have you ever thought, one day, you will be able to see 'baby you'?


                 Images: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/clonezone/images/4-frog.jpg
          http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/cloning-sheep.gif

 References: Genetic Science Learning Center (2014, June 22) The History of Cloning. Learn.Genetics.                                                        Retrieved January 31, 2016, from   http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/clonezone                                       Harvard Medical School, B. (2015). Cloning. Retrieved January 31, 2016,                                                                                      from http://bsp.med.harvard.edu/node/17                                        BBC News. (1997, February 22). 1997: Dolly the sheep is cloned. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from                                        http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/22/newsid_4245000/4245877.stm