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And now it's mice. In today's issue of Nature there is an article by Yanagimachi and Wakayama, they report they've cloned 22 mice. Since the paper was written they have gone on to clone over 50 mice including a clone of a clone of a clone. To my mind that pretty much settles the matter, cloning does reset the cellular aging clock.
Back when Dolly was cloned it was said by many that sheep were especially easy to clone because when their eggs are fertilized they develop very slowly, humans eggs develop faster so you would have little time to work with them and it would be much more difficult to clone, and mice eggs develop much faster than even human eggs so mice would be virtually impossible to clone. At least that's what they said.
One interesting sidelight, they wrote their article on Oct 5 of last year (they had only cloned 4 mice then) and submitted it to the journal "Science", they sat on the article for a few months and then rejected it, not because they thought it was inaccurate but because it was "not of general interest". At least that's what they said.
I fear Science magazine is becoming politically correct, even the people at Nature dragged their feet for months. On the plus side The New York Times says because of these results venture capitalists are starting a animal cloning company.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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