All Things Considered

A news piece on NPR last week was the inspiration for this line of inquiry into human cloning. Is human cloning just around the corner? On NPR Thursday, February 22nd , Joe Palca remembers when just 10 years ago that scientists cloned a sheep named Dolly. She was the world’s first cloned mammal. Since then, scientists around the world are now focused on making embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos. But it seems that smaller steps must first be taken by cloning other species in order to better understand basic biology such as how a fertilized egg even begins to divide and grow. Moreover, what are the potential problems of cloning embryos and its ethical considerations? Mr. Palca offers a Q&A on what scientists have learned since cloning Dolly 10 years ago and what roadblocks scientists are faced with.