Early Cloning
Cloning plants goes way back in history. Cutting, which is a way of cloning plants, goes all the way back to the Middle Ages. Another way of cloning plants, called tissue culture, was first used in the 1950s on orchids, and in the 1970s on other plants. Frogs were the first animals cloned using artificial embryo twinning, and they were first cloned in the 1950s. In the early 1980s, artificial embryo twinning was used to clone lab animals.
Cloning in the 1990s
In the late 1990s, somatic cell nuclear transfer was discovered, which allowed animals to be cloned using adult animal cells. In 1996, Dolly was the first vertebrate animal cloned using somatic cell transfer. In 1998, mice were cloned using somatic cell transfer.
Below: Picture of Dolly taken at National Museum of Scotland last year
Below: Picture of Dolly taken at National Museum of Scotland last year
Cloning in the 2000s
In 2000, pigs were cloned using somatic cell nuclear transfer, and some organs from the cloned pigs were used for transplants. Also, that year, Great Britain gave a company in the US a patent for a specific process of cloning. The advances in cloning increased the likeliness of the ability to clone humans. However, several countries banned funding for cloning research due to the controversy. In July 2001, the House of Representatives banned human cloning. In 2004, somatic cell nuclear transfer was used to create embryos of adult humans. Then, the stem cells were taken from the clones to use for research.