While Europe is trying to stop cloning, Chinese scientists are making another breakthrough. Who is the future for? Perhaps in 30 years our world will be inhabited by clones of humans and animals.
1. The term "cloning" was coined by biologist John Haldane back in 1963.
2. The first successful cloning took place back in 1885. Then they managed to create a copy of the sea urchin.
3. In 1997, the first human cloning company appeared. Clonaid executives claim they managed to clone a little girl in 2002. But scientists never provided proof of a successful experiment.
4. In 2008, the FDA approved the sale of meat from cloned animals and their offspring.
5. The success of scientists is impressive: over the years of experiments, they managed to clone a dog, cat, monkey, horse, rat and many other animals.
6. However, 95% of cloning attempts still fail.
7. Dolly the Sheep is the first mammal to be cloned by transplanting the nucleus of a somatic cell into the cytoplasm of an egg. Dolly the sheep lived for about 7 years. Scientists had to euthanize the animal: Dolly suffered from progressive lung disease and arthritis.
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8. Recently, Chinese scientists managed to clone primates. The monkeys were born on November 27 and December 5, 2017 in Shanghai. Scientists used the Dolly sheep method.
9. Before the experiment in China, it was believed that cloning humans and primates was still an insoluble task. But the Shanghai success changed the situation. The public is excited: in a couple of years, science may focus on human cloning.
10. It is worth recalling that on December 12, 2008, a protocol was signed in Paris, according to which human cloning is prohibited. But it is not known how the situation will change in the future.
Alisa Gorbunova