User:GoldenIsland2124/Somatic cell

Cloning
In recent years, the technique of cloning whole organisms has been developed in mammals, allowing almost identical genetic clones of an animal to be produced. One method of doing this is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" and involves removing the nucleus from a somatic cell, usually a skin cell. This nucleus contains all of the genetic information needed to produce the organism it was removed from. This nucleus is then injected into an ovum of the same species which has had its own genetic material removed. The ovum now no longer needs to be fertilized, because it contains the correct amount of genetic material (a diploid number of chromosomes). In theory, the ovum can be implanted into the uterus of a same-species animal and allowed to develop. The resulting animal will be a nearly genetically identical clone to the animal from which the nucleus was taken. The only difference is caused by any mitochondrial DNA that is retained in the ovum, which is different from the cell that donated the nucleus. In practice, this technique has so far been problematic, although there have been a few high-profile successes, such as Dolly the Sheep (July 5, 1996 - February 14, 2003) and, more recently, Snuppy, (April 24, 2005 - May 2015) the first cloned dog.

Somatic cells have also been collected in the practice of '''biobanking. The cryoconservation of animal genetic resources is a means of conserving animal genetic material including to clone livestock in response to decreasing ecological biodiversity.   As populations of living organisms fall so does does their genetic diversity. This places species long-term survivability at risk. Biobanking aims to preserve biologically viable through long-term storage of an organisms cells for later use. Somatic cells have been stored with the hopes that they can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells iPSCs), which can then differentiate into viable reproductive cells.'''

Genetic modifications
Development of biotechnology has allowed for the genetic manipulation of somatic cells, whether for the modelling of chronic disease or for the prevention of malaise conditions. Two current means of gene editing are the use of transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR).

Genetic engineering of somatic cells has resulted in some controversies, although the International Summit on Human Gene Editing has released a statement in support of genetic modification of somatic cells, as the modifications thereof are not passed on to offspring.