Instead, they want to use somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same process used to clone Dolly the sheep in 1997, to create embryonic stem cells.

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If I understand the tetraploid complementation technique utilized in these experiments correctly, then, scientists would no longer need to generate embryos via somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning).

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"Somatic cell nuclear transfer does not relate to cloning, and the people who call it therapeutic cloning are creating a lot of confusion, because it is not cloning at all, and it certainly is not reproductive cloning, " Specter said.

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Even Dolly the sheep, who was produced by cloning via somatic nuclear cell transfer, benefited from a male imprinted genome.

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The problem is that making them using somatic-cell nuclear transfer involves breaking up viable embryos, since the cells in question are found inside early-stage embryos, called blastocysts.

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