• Question: is it possible to get a panda's DNA swap a few swap a few genes with the ones from another panda of the same gender clone a panda with that DNA mixture and if you can will the clone be different to the ones you got the DNA from.

    Asked by Angel to James, Joe on 20 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 20 Mar 2015:


      Morning Angel,

      Wow a complicated question! What you are referring to is a little similar to the recent law passed to allow the “three person babies” in the UK. In that case, a small amount of genetic material is taken from a donor to replace potentially defective material from one of the parents, implanted into the embryo of the baby and then implanted into the mothers womb. In this situation, the baby is still nearly completely the mix of its parents DNA and genes, with one small area edited as such to make it work better.

      In your question, if mixed two Pandas DNA to make our new panda and then inserted that DNA into a Panda embryo, it would be born being the mix of its two sources of DNA.

      A clone is an exact replica of an animal with a set of DNA and genetic material, so in this case your altered Panda would be a clone of the two Panda’s it was created from, but not a clone of one of those donor Pandas.

      Hope this makes some sense, it is a very tricky question!

    • Photo: Joe Spencer

      Joe Spencer answered on 20 Mar 2015:


      Good question, I think James covered it all pretty well.

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