X-Message-Number: 7756 Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 10:20:29 -0800 From: (Olaf Henny) Subject: Re: CryoNet #7744, Cloning is here John K Clark <> wrote in Message #7744: Subject: Cloning is here >There is also the question of somebody making a clone of you without your >permission or even your knowledge. The Pope may thunder against the evils of >it, but it would only take one fleck of papal dandruff to make a clone of the >Pope. There are more down to earth medical applications too. I am afraid from what I hear about the cloning procedure, it does not appear quite as simple as tossing a papal cell into a nutrient soup and after awhile out 'pops a pope'. The cell was taken from the udder (now where is the papal equivalent for that ;->) of the sheep, which was the subject of cloning and used to *fertilize* an egg taken from a different sheep (why a _different_ one?) and the resulting embryo was then implanted into a third (!?) sheep. This was as I understand also the only success in a large number (I believe in the thirties) of concurrent identical experiments. I am not sure, how the complete dominance of the genes of the udder cell was achieved, but it appears to me, that this cloning was basically in genetic terms a single parent propagation. While the procedure was no doubt a huge success, the success rate still needs a tad of work. So, I believe, John, your dandruff creation project still has to be delayed for a year or two. ;-) Olaf Henny Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7756