Nuclear transfer between fish (Tong Dizhou)
Transferencia nuclear entre peces (Tong Dizhou)
- Date
- 1963 · confidence medium
- Place
- Shanghai, China
- Credited to
- Tong Dizhou (Tong Ti-chow) and his team
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The Chinese embryologist Tong Dizhou transplanted carp blastula nuclei into enucleated eggs of another carp species (Carassius) and obtained viable fry with traits of both species. It is the first nuclear transfer in a fish and is regarded as a pioneer of vertebrate cloning in China.
Published in Chinese with little international circulation; its significance and its reading as “cloning” are debated, and the exact place (Shanghai or Qingdao, depending on the institute) is uncertain. Gurdon (1962) is the international reference for vertebrate nuclear transfer.
What it led to
- Chinese school of experimental embryology and fish genetic engineering
- interspecies nuclear transfer in vertebrates
- Chinese programmes for cloning mammals