Cloning today

2001/07/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika

Cloning of animals can cause problems. One of them has to do with the aging process. To clone Dolly he left an adult sheep cell, so at the time of birth his cells did not act as a lamb, but as an adult sheep. Now scientists have found another problem.

All the animals that we have father and mother receive 23 chromosomes from each, that is, the father gives us a copy of their genetic information and the other mother, and our characteristics come from the combination of both sources of information. To do this, the cells place chemical marks on the chromosomes and thus determine the part of the source of each parent to be used.

But Dolly had only one father. But the cells didn’t know that and began to mark how biology ‘commands’. Therefore, some information was not used correctly and caused problems. The most common problems in cloning are obesity, heart disease, and lung malformations. The problem has been found and now comes the turn of the solution.