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Recent Cloning Developments

In July 1998, Ryuzo Yanagimachi, Toni Perry, and Teruhiko Wakayama of the University of Hawaii announced that they had cloned fifty mice from adult cells since October of 1997. The new cloning technique, which has proven to be more efficient than that performed by Ian Wilmut in his cloning of Dolly, was developed by postdoctoral student Wakayama in his spare time.

Perry,Yanagimachi, & Wakayama Image courtesy Probio Inc.

Wakayama injected only the nucleus of an adult cumulus cell into an enucleated egg. Then, he let the sit in a suspended state for about six hours before stimulating with a chemical bath to start dividing. The embryos were transferred to surrogate mothers once they reached the blastocyst stage. Wakayama's results were amazing. His cloning success rate was about three in every 100 attempts, much better than Wilmut's one in 277. Then Wakayama, working with other scientists at the University of Hawaii began to make clones of his clones. At the time of the announcement of his research, Wakayama had produced three generations of genetically identical mice, an organism which has proven to be one of the hardest to clone. Wakayama's cloning process is now called the Honolulu Technique, and has been licensed by Probio America, Inc.

Due to the reliability of Wakayama's technique, it is expected that it will be employed in the creation of transgenic cattle, livestock genetically altered to produce human proteins and useful drugs. Also, due to the short gestation period of mice, it is believed scientists will be able to use the Honolulu Technique to more easily study the activation and deactivation of genes during development.

Technical Explanation of the Honolulu Technique.
Overview of the Nuclear Transfer technique.
Animation: The Honolulu Technique

Web Links:
Original Research Paper Submitted to Nature
Probio America
Scientific American: "Send in the Clones"

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