How do scientists make clones?

Animal cloning is a very complicated scientific process that has taken years to develop. Unfertilized eggs from a female animal are collected and the genetic material is removed. Next, genetic material from the clone’s donor is injected into the egg. The egg is given an electrical shock which makes it begin to grow and divide. The dividing cells form into an embryo. The embryo is then transplanted into the womb of a surrogate animal mother, who will give birth the cloned animal.

This is how the Project Idaho scientists cloned the mules:

1. Unfertilized eggs were collected from a mare.
2. The DNA was removed from the mare’s egg.
3. DNA from the “clone donor,” a mule fetus' skin cells, were removed and injected in to the egg cell.
4. A spark of electricity artificially fertilized the egg.
5. The egg cell began to form an embryo.
6. Next the embryo was transplanted into the womb of the surrogate mare.
7. The mare carried the mule fetus for 11 months and on May 4, 2003 the world’s first equine clone, Idaho Gem, was born.

This same process was used to clone two other Project Idaho mules – creating triplets! The three mules have identical DNA, since they were all created from the same clone donor.

[Glossary]