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Who
is Ralph? He is the world's first cloned rat. Created
by Jean-Paul Renard at the French Institute for
Agronomy Research, Jouy en Josas, France, Ralph
has already become a father. He has sired a litter
of two month old pups.
Until now, many researchers had tried their hand
at cloning rats and given up. Standard techniques
of cloning do not work with rats.
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Renard's team grew rat eggs in a culture dish with a drug
that prevents cell division, then followed the normal
procedure.
A few decades earlier Michael Gould from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison made history be developing the first
GM rat. Till date, more than 5000 GM strains of rats have
been created.
References
Zhou, Q. et al. Generation of fertile cloned rats using
controlled timing of oocyte activation. Sciencexpress,
published online, doi:10.1126/science.1088313 (2003).
