Cloning DialogeThe setting is a biology class in a small college where only three out of twenty students have come to class because it is the last day before the start of spring break. The names of the three students are Andy, Kristen and Eric. Seeing that there are only three students in the class, the professor turns his lecture material into a class discussion involving recent scientific advances in the field of cloning. During the discussion the professor explains how the cloning of a sheep named Dolly occurred. Furthermore, students and the professor share their opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of cloning humans or animals. Professor: Good morning class! I am sure you all have heard about the recent scientific breakthrough in the cloning process. If not, allow me to update you on this current controversial scientific discovery. Last week, a Scottish scientist named Dr. Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, successfully cloned an adult sheep. I said adult sheep because scientists already have the ability to clone sheep and calves, for agricultural purposes, from undifferentiated embryonic cells. Are there any questions for now? Kristen: Um, yes, professor. Could you please elaborate on the term undifferentiated cell? Also, the word cloning sounds like something you might hear from science fiction movies or novels: Isn't the cloning process very complicated? Professor: To answer your first question, Kristen, an undifferentiated cell is a cell that has the ability to create other specific cells, such as skin, hair, brain, and muscles, as it activates certain genes on the chromosomes. As for your second question, the concept of cloning is not that complicated to understand. Let me explain that I have divided Dr. Wilmut's cloning process into three phases. During the first phase, cells from the udder of a six-year-old Finn Dorset sheep were taken and placed in a culture dish. The culture dish, containing low levels of nutrients, starved the cells, forcing it to stop dividing and hibernate its active genes. Meanwhile, the nucleus with its DNA from an unfertilized egg – also called an oocyte – taken from a Scottish Blackface sheep, is aspirated with a hair-thin pipette, leaving the empty egg with all its cellular tools needed to produce an embryo. By the way, this process is called nuclear transfer. Ok, now let's move on to the second step; the egg and donor cell are placed next to each other and fused together, like soap bubbles, by an electrical impulse.