Cloning DialogeThe setting is a biology class at a small college where only three out of twenty students have come to class because it is the last day before spring break begins. The names of the three students are Andy, Kristen and Eric. Seeing only three students in the class, the professor turns his lecture into a class discussion on recent scientific advances in the field of cloning. During the discussion, the professor explains how the cloning of a sheep named Dolly was done. Additionally, students and professor share their views on the pros and cons of human or animal cloning. Teacher: Hello class! I am sure you have all heard about the recent scientific discovery regarding the cloning process. Otherwise, let me tell you about this current controversial scientific discovery. Last week, a Scottish scientist, Dr Ian Wilmut, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, successfully cloned an adult sheep. I mentioned adult sheep because scientists already have the capacity to clone sheep and calves, for agricultural purposes, from undifferentiated embryonic cells. Are there any questions so far? Kristen: Um, yes, professor. Could you please expand on the term undifferentiated cell? Plus, the word cloning sounds like something you would hear in 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 muscle, because it activates certain genes on chromosomes. For your second question, the notion of cloning is really not that complicated to understand. Let me explain as I break Dr. Wilmut's cloning process into three steps. In the first step, udder cells from a six-year-old Finn Dorset ewe were collected and placed in a culture dish. The culture dish, containing low levels of nutrients, starved the cells, causing them 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 ewe, is sucked out with a fine pipette, leaving the egg empty with all its cellular tools needed for the production of an embryo. By the way, this process is called nuclear transfer. Okay, now let's move on to step two; the egg cell and a donor cell are placed next to each other and fused, like soap bubbles, by an electrical impulse.