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Showing posts with label terms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terms. Show all posts

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Glossary of Terms

Asexual reproduction - a form of reproduction that does not involve meiosis, ploidy reduction or fertilization, and the offspring is a clone of the parent organism because there is no exchange of genetic material. Source Biology-online.org
Reproduction requiring one parent. Offspring are identical to the parent. Source TheFreeDictionary.com
A mode of reproduction by which offspring arise from a single organism, and inherit the genes of that parent only; it is reproduction which almost never involves ploidy or reduction. The offspring will be exact genetic copies of the parent, except in the specific case of automixis. A more stringent definition is agamogenesis which is reproduction without the fusion of gametes. Source Wikipedia.org

Clone - An organism or cell, or group of organisms or cells, produced asexually from one ancestor or stock, to which they are genetically identical. Source Oxford Dictionaries
A plant or animal that has the same genes as the original from which it was produced. Source Cambridge Dictionary

Eugenics - the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Source Oxford online dictionary
A pseudoscience with the stated aim of improving the genetic constitution of the human species by selective breeding. Source Medicinenet.com

Euglycaemic - Pertaining to normal blood glucose levels. Source Medical dictionary at TheFreeDictionary

Fibroblast - A cell found in the connective tissue of animals. It is responsible for making collagen and wound healing. Source Wikipedia

Identical twins - two people who are 'monozygotic', that is, they developed from a single, fertilized egg that split. Source Diffen.com
Two babies of the same sex who were born at the same time, developed from the same egg, and look the same. Source Dictionary.cambridge.org
Two children produced in the same pregnancy. Twins who develop from a single ovum are called monozygotic or identical twins. They have identical genomes. Source Medicinenet.com

Meiosis - a form of cell division happening in sexually reproducing organisms by which two consecutive nuclear divisions (meiosis I and meiosis II) occur without the chromosomal replication in between, leading to the production of four haploid gametes (sex cells). Source Biology-online
Meiosis is a type of cell division that reduces the number of chromosomes in the parent cell by half, and produces four gamete cells. This process is required to produce egg and sperm cells for sexual reproduction. Source Nature.com
A type of cell division that results in four daughter cells each with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell, as in the production of gametes and plant spores. Source Oxford Dictionaries

Micromanipulators - equipment used to manipulate the delicate glass micropipettes which perform the injection of donor somatic cells into oocytes in the production of human clones.

Normotensive - Having normal blood pressure. Source Medical dictionary at TheFreeDictionary

Orphan Black - the name of a series on Canadian and American television about human clones. Source Temple Street Productions

Osteophytosis - A disease in which the bones of joints modify themselves as a result of damage within the joint. Source University of Michigan Medical School

Pluripotent stem cell - a stem cell that has the potential to become any one of the three different germ layers of cells. Source Wikipedia

Primates - an order of the class Mammalia, in the Kingdom of Animalia. Source Wikipedia
primate(s) - a member of the order Primates. Source Wikipedia
A very high-ranking member of the Church i.e. a bishop or an archbishop. Oxford Dictionary

Reproductive cloning - reproductive cloning gives life to a new human being. Until recently only sexual reproduction or artificial reproduction techniques, e.g. IVF existed. Reproductive cloning represents a new reproduction technique by which life can be given to an identical twin of the original cell donor. Source Clonaid.com
The cloning of organisms with the goal of planting the blastula produced by the technique into the uterus of an adult female and thus creating a new organism. Source Dictionary.com
The reproductive cloning of a sentient human being; generally considered ethically unacceptable. Source TheFreeDictionary.com
The genetic duplication of an existing organism especially by transferring the nucleus of a somatic cell of the organism into an enucleated oocyte. Source American Heritage Dictionary 5th Ed.
Human cloning for the purposes of creating a human being. Source Medicinenet.com

Sterile - not able to produce children or young. Source Oxford Dictionaries
Incapable of reproduction; unfitted for reproduction of offspring. Source Biology-online.org

Therapeutic cloning - enables the creation of embryonic stem cells. Source Clonaid.com
The process of creating new organs or other body parts that a patient’s body will accept because they are made from cells that contain their own DNA. Source Macmillandictionary.com
Cloning designed as therapy for a disease. In therapeutic cloning, the nucleus of a cell, typically a skin cell, is inserted into a fertilized egg whose nucleus has been removed. The nucleated egg begins to divide repeatedly to form a blastocyst. Scientists then extract stem cells from the blastocyst and use them to grow cells that are a perfect genetic match for the patient. Source Medicinenet.com