【正确答案】There are only less than 1,000 pandas still alive in the wild; pandas are on the verge of extinction. Saving pandas, Chinas national treasure, from extinction has become a common aspiration of the Chinese people.
Since early 1990s, we have used artificial insemination to increase the number of pandas. But the method of artificial insemination is still far from satisfactory with regard to the fate of the whole family. Moreover, because pandas usually produce only a small number of eggs and sperms, and when the female panda cant take part in the mating, the method wont work.
In 1997, the more ambitious planto clone the panda started. The project was injected with special funds by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998, and backed by investment from the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1999. The experiment aims to implant a nucleolus of a pandas body cell into a denucleated ovum, thus producing a completely new being.
We are aware that the true challenge is the second step of cloning a panda producing a new panda baby in the matrix of another kind of animals. At present, we re not sure which animal will be the ideal surrogate mother. Even if a panda is cloned, it only has the DNA of the panda that provided the body cell. Therefore, to a certain degree, cloning does nothing to protect the animals.