Kris & Stephanie welcome their super-smart friend Sally (@sheaven on Twitter) to the podcast! Sally gives us a crash course in the science behind cloning, while we consider how it ties into Orphan Black.

What is cloning?

• Replicating DNA in biotechnology — small genes or pieces of genes or entire organisms
• Somatic cells into eggs
• ICSI for IVF

Dolly the sheep

• First mammal cloned, 1997
• Named “Dolly” because cells cloned were from an udder
• Somatic cells and telomeres (Hayflick limit)
• Died of respiratory infection

Other organisms cloned

• High incidence of respiratory infection
• People have been cloned using skin cells and the embryos destroyed

Cloning and Orphan Black

The Dyad Institute

• Implications of the name “Dyad” (pair of sister chromatids)
• Dyad also means chromatid pairs that are formed when DNA is copied during mitosis (not meiosis) does this give a clue about how they are conducting their cloning operations? Or just a general nod to replicating DNA?

WHY are they cloning people anyway?

• We are given indications by Leekie that they are cloning to study the behavioral adaptations of clones in all sorts of environments.
• Why would anyone want to study that?
• Do we trust what Leekie says?
• What other unspoken reasons could there be?
• Most common reason to clone in sci-fi is organ farming but that seems unlikely in this case because they released the clones “into the wild”

Implications

• How is Sarah fertile?
• Kira and Helena both seem to heal well
• How could the barcode have been inserted into the clones’ DNA?
• Ethical implications of patenting DNA

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