One method of cloning organisms is to perform artificial embryo twinning. This method mirrors the natural meiosis process, except is done in a Petri dish. Natural twinning occurs when the egg has been fertilised by the sperm and forms a zygote. When the fertilised cell tries to divide and replicate, its splits into to identical cells. The split cells continue to divide and form into separate embryos inside the mother. The embryos will be identical as they were formed from the same egg and sperm cells. Artificial twinning uses the same principles however in conducted in a Petri dish rather than the womb of the mother. The cells are manually split and are allowed to develop for a short period of time. Once this period of time has elapsed, the cells are transferred into a surrogate mother where the cells can fully develop. Artificial twinning is said to be a basic method of cloning.
Artificial twinning was first successfully conducted in 1885, where a sea urchin was effectively cloned. Artificial twinning is also said to be safer than natural twinning as the artificially split cells produce their own placenta and amniotic sacs, reducing the risk of pregnancy and childbirth problems. As cell splitting is a basic form of scientific technology, there is a limit of the number of clones which are able to be produced. There is also no opportunity to genetically modify the cells as the genetic material is not being extracted from the parents