removed are referred to as somatic cells. Somatic cells serve a specific function only, like a liver cell or a brain cell. Totipotent cells, on the other hand, have not yet become specific cells. Totipotent cells, like the cells in a fertilized embryo, give rise to somatic cells as the totipotent cells continuously divide, thereby creating the different somatic cells that formulate a fetal human being. During Dolly’s creation, Ian Wilmut and his team first removed the genetic material from a somatic cell and from a totipotent embryonic cell, and then implanted the genetic material from the somatic cell into the empty totipotent cell. “The result is a totipotent embryo with the genetic information of the adult from which the somatic cell nucleus was taken. This is known as cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer” (Larry Craig online). In its human application, somatic cells would be removed from a living human, injected into an empty embryo, and then implanted into a woman’s uterus for gestation. During the gestation period, the genetic material from the somatic cell would spawn totipotent cells in the embryo and would begin creating the totipotent cells necessary for development. The scientific magic of the process consists of the development of totipotent cells from the genetic material of the somatic cells. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), located in the nucleus of all somatic cells, contains all of the necessary information to produce an entire human being. By isolating the DNA of a somatic cell during a somatic cell nuclear transfer; the DNA of an existing human directs the development of a fetal human being from the totipotent embryonic cells. Genetic cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer creates a clone of an existing human being through the transfer of genetic material and then implantation into a surrogate uterus.Somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning of a human will occur and become common in the future....
