The world's first human clone of an adult has now been made, by an American biotechnology company in Massachusetts, Advanced Cell Technology. They took a cell from Dr Jose Cibelli, a research scientist and combined it with a cows egg from which the genes had already been removed. The genes activated and the egg began to divide in the normal way up to the 32 cell stage at which it was destroyed. If the clone had been allowed to continue beyond implantation it would have developed as Dr Cibelli's identical twin.
Mitochondria are power generators in the cytoplasm of the cell.
They grow and divide inside cells and are passed on from one generation to another. They are present in sperm and eggs. Judging by the successful growth of the combined human-cow clone creation it appears that cow mitochondria may well be compatible with human embryonic development. In other words, the huge media rush about Dolly came only because the Dolly scientists in Edinburgh came clean sooner. But even they omitted to tell us anything until Dolly was seven months old, well over a year after the cloning technique was successfully carried out and a good two to three years perhaps after they began their secretive work.