Cloning/Dolly - advantages and disadvantages

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Dolly the Sheep

Dolly, the sheep was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Scientists working at the Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly, the only lamb born from 277 attempts. Several clones were generated before Dolly, but Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. For the process of how Dolly was cloned, follow the given links.

Advantages and disadvantages of cloning[edit | edit source]

Reproductive cloning may enable researchers to make copies of animals with the potential benefits for the fields of medicine and agriculture. For instance, the Scottish researchers who cloned Dolly have cloned other sheep that have been genetically modified to produce milk that contains a human protein essential for blood clotting. The hope is that someday this protein can be purified from the milk and given to humans whose blood does not clot properly.

On the other hand reproductive cloning is a very inefficient technique as most of the cloned animal embryos cannot develop into healthy individuals. For example, Dolly was the only clone to be born live out of a total of 277 cloned embryos. For some other advantages and disadvantages of cloning follow the given link.