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Clone Cow Amy's Father-- Yang Xiangzhong

 

 The Man Who Let Men's Dream Come True

Humans have always had a fascination with cloning. While some have vilified the idea, many others dream of it. Since 1905, people have researched this area. In 1997, a sheep named Dolly was successfully cloned from an adult cell, which put clone technology into the global spotlight. After that, Japanese and New Zealand scientists separately used ovary and oviduct cells in clone research, with their achievements adding several successful models to the global cloning technical research field. However, the goal of cloning cells of non-reproductive organs was still a dream.

On June 10, 1999, people's dream came true, shaking the global scientific circle. The person who threw out this " bomb" was the Chinese American scientist --Yang Xiangzhong. On that day, under Yang's management, the first cloned cow, Amy, a 94-pound Holstein heifer, was born.

Although, like other cloned animals, Amy was made from the DNA of an adult cell, what distinguished her from the famous sheep, Dolly, is that the DNA used to in her came from non-reproductive cells.

Amy's DNA comes from a 13-yearold (over 80 years in human age) cow's ear. Amy's genetic mother, Aspen, has already surpassed the normal child-bearing age, but its annual production of milk is as high as 35,000 pounds, twice that of an ordinary cow. Those two differences made Amy's birth even more valuable.

Soon afterwards, following the new millennium, Yang Xiangzhong and his research team reported another new achievement. They successfully cloned six calves again. This time they used a bull's ear cells, which they had cultivated for a long time. The important achievement they made this time was that they broke the traditional idea that only new or very young cells could be cloned. Therefore, Yang and his team developed a new way in the diagnosis of hereditary diseases and the treatment of organs and other parts of human bodies. This achievement shocked the world again, with the news media of every country reporting the event as headline material.

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