Opinion: Is a Clone Really Born at Age Zero?

February 21, 2017

(The Scientist) – The implications of cloning animals in our society were self-evident from the start. Our advancing ability to reprogram adult, already-specialized cells and start them over as something new may one day be the key to creating cells and organs that match the immune system of each individual patient in need of replacements. But what somehow got lost was the fact that a clone was born—at day zero—created from the cell of another animal that was 6 years old. Researchers have spent the past 20 years trying to untangle the mysteries of how clones age. How old, biologically, are these animals born from other adult animals’ cells?