How do scientists clone animals?
By a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Scientists take a somatic (not a sperm or egg) cell from an adult animal and isolate the nucleus from that cell. They then take an egg from another one of the same animal and remove the nucleus from that egg, replacing it with the somatic cell nucleus. They then “fool” the egg into thinking it has been fertilised (there are biochemical signals an egg receives on being fertilised that stimulate it to divide), and the egg divides and develops as any normal egg would. This fertilised egg is implanted into a fertile female (like IVF treatment), and it develops as normal.
